Brand Color Generator

What this tool does

Building a set of brand colours can begin from two very different places. Sometimes you already have one key colour, often a logo or brand colour you want to build around. Other times all you have is the logo image itself, and you want to pull its colours out to work with.

This page is the starting point that covers both. It gives you two ways in: generate a brand palette from your main colour, or generate one from your logo. It does not build the palette on this page itself; it sends you to the right tool for whichever starting point you choose, so you head straight to the one that fits what you already have.

How to use it

1. Pick your starting point. Choose "from your main colour" if you have a key colour, or "from your logo" if you have a logo image.
2. Open that tool. Each choice opens the matching tool built for that path.
3. Build your palette there. Give it your colour or upload your logo, and work with the colours it produces.

Choose the path that matches what you have, a colour or a logo, and this page hands you off to the tool that handles it.

How it works

This page is a chooser rather than a generator. It offers the two sensible ways to arrive at a brand palette and routes you to a dedicated tool for each, because building from a single colour and pulling colours out of an image are different jobs that each deserve their own tool.

The main-colour path opens the palette generator, which takes one colour and builds a palette around it, with lighter and darker versions and sets of partner colours. The logo path opens the image tool, which takes an uploaded picture and extracts the main colours already in it. This page simply points you to the right one so you are not left guessing which tool to open.

The two ways to start

The choice comes down to what you are holding. If you have a definite brand colour already, a hex code or a colour you have settled on, the main-colour path is the one: it treats that colour as the anchor and builds outward from it. This is the route when the identity has a lead colour and you want a full set around it.

If instead you have a logo or another image and want colours that match it, the logo path fits. Rather than starting from a colour you name, it reads the colours out of the picture, which is useful when the brand lives in an existing logo and you want a palette drawn from what is already there. Picking the path that matches your starting point saves you a wrong turn.

What makes a brand palette

Whichever path you take, a workable brand palette tends to have the same shape. There is usually one lead colour that carries the identity, one or two supporting colours that back it up, and a set of neutrals, greys and near-blacks, for text and backgrounds. That structure gives a brand enough range to build with while staying recognisable.

Colours also carry a feeling, and a brand leans on that. Blues read as calm and trustworthy, greens as natural, reds as energetic, and so on, so the mood of a palette is part of the message. Treat whatever the tools produce as a starting frame: promote a lead colour, soften the supporting ones, and add neutrals, so the result reads as a considered brand scheme rather than a raw set of swatches.

Starting from a main colour

The main-colour path is for when you have a colour to build on. You give the generator that key colour, and it produces a palette around it: lighter and darker versions of the colour, and several sets of partner colours drawn from colour theory. It turns one colour into a whole coordinated group you can choose from.

This is the natural route for extending a brand that already has a lead colour. Rather than picking every supporting colour by hand, you start from the one that matters and let the tool suggest colours that sit well with it. From there you keep the ones that fit the brand and adjust the rest, using the single colour as the anchor for everything else.

Starting from a logo

The logo path is for when the colours you want already live in an image. You upload your logo, and the tool pulls out the main colours it contains, giving you a palette taken straight from the artwork rather than from a colour you type in.

This is handy when a brand is defined by an existing logo and you need its colours in a usable form, for a website, a document, or matching materials. Instead of guessing the hex codes by eye, you let the tool read them from the image. The colours it returns are the ones already in the logo, which you can then copy and use, or refine into a fuller brand palette.

Questions people ask

Does this page build the palette itself?

No. It is a starting point that offers two paths and sends you to the matching tool, one for building from a colour, one for pulling colours from a logo.

Which path should I choose?

Choose the main-colour path if you already have a key brand colour, and the logo path if you have a logo or image and want the colours out of it.

What does the logo path do?

It takes your uploaded logo image and extracts the main colours already in it, so you get a palette drawn from the artwork rather than typed in by hand.

What does the main-colour path do?

It takes one colour and builds a palette around it, with lighter and darker versions and sets of partner colours you can choose from.

References

1. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), CSS Color Module Level 4. https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-4/
2. Color scheme, how colours are chosen to work together. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_scheme
3. Brand, and the role of colour in identity. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand