Coolors

Resource link

Coolors is a colour palette generator.

It can generate an entire colour palette randomly, or based on input such as a logo or manually entered colours. There are many settings available to adjust colours by shade, hue, saturation etc. as well as settings to test whether colour contrasts are clear for people with colour blindness. Colour palettes can be shared, saved and exported with colour code information.  

This resource and the following information was contributed by Nick Herft.

Authors and their affiliation

Fabrizio Bianchi

Key features

  • Random colour palette generator
  • Generate palette based on specific colour(s)
  • Pick colours from an image
  • Colour blindness settings (Protanopia, Deuteranopia, Tritanopia, Achromatospsia, Protanomaly, Deuteranomaly, Tritanomaly, Achromatomaly)
  • Easy to adjust colours by shade, hue, saturation, brightness, temperature
  • Export palette by URL, PDF, PNG, SCSS, SVG
  • Save palettes
  • iOS version
  • Explore other colour palette generated/created by others
  • Tutorial on how to use the palette generator

How have you used or intend on using this resource?

I have used this resource in website interface design. I will either upload a logo and generate a palette based on the logo, or pick a primary colour from the logo and generate the palette based on that primary colour. I will then hit the spacebar on my keyboard to continue to generate colours until I find an attractive set. The "padlock" icon is useful for locking a colour I like so it won't change while the others are generated.

Why would you recommend it to other people?

Although I used this for website design it can be useful for report design too. I would start with a single primary colour that looks good for your main headings, then add that into the colour palette and lock it so it doesn't change. Hit the spacebar key to generate colours until you see a set that you like. I would then use those generated colours for various elements of the report, such as quotes, tables, boxes, data visualisations, etc. For first-timers, I recommend clicking the question mark icon to view the tutorial.

Sources

Bianchi, C. (2018). Coolors. [Website]. Retrieved from: https://coolors.co/