Whether you’re designing a logo or painting a house, choosing colours can be frustrating. Where do you start? Which colors work together, and why? How can you creatively explore different moods or directions?
Use the free Colour Calculator to explore creative color options for your design project. Simply pick your base color(s), choose a color harmony, tweak/explore as needed, and see results. You’ll get a report of the hex, RGB, and CMYK color values for your project and see your colors applied to design samples. Share or print, rinse and repeat.
1. Pick a Colour.
Click the first field to open the colour picker and slide to select your desired hue (such as red, violet, or blue). Drag the dot right and left to adjust saturation or up and down to adjust value.
If you know the hexadecimal, RGB, or CMYK values for your base color enter them in the fields. Click plus to add up to three base colors
2. Choose a Harmony.
Choose one of six colour combinations to work with your starting colour. Click the color harmony symbol to complete the colour scheme.
3. See Results.
The colors making up your harmony will display in the color calculator swatches and on the interactive colour wheel.
Tweak or explore these choices by selecting and comparing different harmonies, viewing the same harmony with different colours, adjusting saturation or value, or adding additional input colours. Clear All to start over.
Like what you’re seeing? Create Colour Scheme to see a color report—and save the hexadecimal, RGB, and CMYK colors for your Web or print projects.
See your swatch applied to design samples. Print the page, save it as a PDF, share it with friends and family. It’s a colorful world.