Color Palettes

What this tool does

Picking one colour is easy. Finding a handful that genuinely work together is the hard part, and staring at a blank picker rarely helps. Sometimes what you want is not to build a palette from scratch but to be shown some good ones and pick from there.

That is what this does. It hands you ready-made colour palettes drawn at random from a large built-in collection, and you choose how many to see at once. Each palette is a set of colours already chosen to sit together, so you can refresh through them until something clicks, then take the set or the colours you like. It is a way to browse good palettes, not to assemble one yourself.

How to use it

1. Choose how many. Set the number of palettes you want to see at once.
2. Generate. Press the button to draw that many random palettes from the collection.
3. Browse and copy. Look through them, click any swatch to copy its hex, and press again for a fresh set.

Set how many palettes to see, generate, and refresh through the random sets until one fits, copying the colours you want.

How it works

The tool holds a large built-in collection of hand-picked palettes, each one a set of five colours put together to work as a group. When you generate, it shows a random selection from that collection, the number you asked for, laid out as rows of swatches with their hex codes. The values are rendered with TinyColor.

Pressing generate again simply draws a new random selection from the same collection. So rather than calculating colours from a base you provide, the tool is dealing you cards from a large, curated deck: every palette you see is one that was designed to hold together, and refreshing keeps bringing up more of them until you find one you want.

What each palette is

Each palette the tool shows is a set of five colours chosen to sit together as a scheme. They are not random colours thrown side by side; they come from a collection of palettes that were put together deliberately, so the five in any one set already balance and complement each other.

And because you can ask for several at once, you are comparing whole schemes rather than building a single one colour at a time. That is the useful part: instead of judging one colour against another, you scan finished palettes and react to them as complete ideas, which is a much quicker way to find a direction you like.

Choosing how many at once

A simple count control decides how many palettes appear together. Ask for a small number and you get a focused handful to look at closely. Ask for more and you get a wider spread to scan through quickly, which is handy when you are casting about for inspiration and want to see a lot of options at a glance.

There is no single right number; it depends on how you like to browse. Some people prefer a few palettes at a time and refresh often, while others would rather fill the screen and pick from a big batch. The control lets you work either way, so you can dip in for a couple of ideas or survey many at once.

Why browse random palettes

The main value is getting past the blank page. When you have no starting point, being shown finished palettes gives you something concrete to react to, which is far easier than conjuring a scheme from nothing. Even a palette you reject helps, because it sharpens your sense of what you do want.

The randomness is part of the appeal too. Refreshing keeps surfacing combinations you would not have assembled yourself, including ones that turn out to work beautifully, so you stumble onto ideas rather than having to invent them. Designers use it early on to gather directions quickly, treating it as a source of ready-made starting points to browse, borrow from, and refine.

Using a palette you like

When a palette catches your eye, clicking any swatch copies its hex code, so you can take the colours straight into your work. You might use a whole palette as it stands, keeping all five colours as your scheme, or you might borrow just one or two from several different palettes.

Treat what you find as a starting point you can adjust. A palette from the collection gives you a set that already works, but nothing stops you from swapping a colour, tweaking a shade, or combining favourites from a few sets into your own. The tool gets you to a good group of colours fast; what you do with them from there is yours to shape.

Questions people ask

What does it give me?

Several ready-made palettes, each a set of five colours chosen to work together, drawn at random from a large built-in collection. You pick how many to see at once.

Do I start from my own colour?

No. The palettes are pre-made. You browse random ones and refresh until a set fits, rather than building a palette around a colour you enter.

How do I get different palettes?

Press generate again for a fresh random selection from the collection. You can refresh as many times as you like until something clicks.

How do I copy a colour?

Click any swatch to copy its hex code. You can take a whole palette or lift individual colours from several.

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. TinyColor (Brian Grinstead). Documentation. https://github.com/bgrins/TinyColor