10 Resources for Creating Website Color Schemes

Published in Design, Tools

Choosing the right color scheme is one of the most important decisions of the website design process, and it can also be one of the most challenging. Fortunately, there are a number of great tools available to help with color selection.

Some of the resources mentioned in this post will allow you to browse through a variety of color palettes or schemes, many will allow you to create and save your own color schemes, and some are interactive, allowing you to quickly create an effective color scheme.

Kuler

Adobe’s Kuler includes a large library of user-submitted color schemes. You can view the color schemes online or download them to be used in Adobe Creative Suite products.

Colour Lovers

Colour Lovers currently has almost 2 million color palettes created by its users. You can browse palettes by submission date, rating, views, and comments, or you can search by keyword.

ColoRotate

ColoRotate has a library of color schemes that you can browse, or you can create your own with their unique 3D tool. You can use it directly in Photoshop and Fireworks with the ColoRotate plugin.

Color Scheme Designer

Color Scheme Designer allows you to choose the type of scheme that you want to use (mono, complement, triad, tetrad, analogic, or accented analogic). You then adjust one of the colors on the wheel and the other colors will adjust as well, helping to create an appropriate color scheme.

ColorSchemer Gallery

ColorSchemer has a large library of user-created color schemes. You can browse by submission date, rating, or number of downloads, or you can search by keyword.

Pictaculous

Pictaculous is a simple online tool for generating a color scheme. You can upload a photo and it will suggest colors to use with the photo. You can then download the Adobe swatch of the suggested colors.

Color Spire

Color Spire is fairly simple to use. You select a starting color and it will suggest a palette of colors to use in combination. It also provides a basic preview to show how the colors would look on a sample website layout.

ColorExplorer

ColorExplorer includes a few different color tools. With the color picker you can select a color and see different variations. You can also view color libraries and use the color matching tool to help create a palette.

ColourGrab

ColourGrab is a simple tool that allows you to get colors from a picture that is online. Just enter the URL of the image and it will show which colors are used most in the photo.

Sphere: Color Theory Visualizer

With Sphere you can adjust one of the colors in the scheme and the others will automatically adjust to match. You can try different types of color schemes like analogous, complementary, triadic, tetradic, and more.

For more resources please see:

Published December 28th, 2011 by Steven Snell

18 Responses

aledesign.it December 28th, 2011

So nice links. A good set of tools important and useful for every kind of work. Thanks for sharing

Ithi December 28th, 2011

I like it! I have known Kuler and ColoRotate, great collection.

Tom Bicknell December 28th, 2011

Nice list, thanks for the share. This is also a good site that I use for colors: http://www.colorsontheweb.com/
The color tools section is really useful.

Thomas December 29th, 2011

Hello Steven,

Great list, I also just relaunch one of mine : http://imgr.co that is like Pictaculous

Best

Vandelay Website Design December 29th, 2011

Hi Thomas,
It looks like a good tool. Thanks for sharing the link.

Guy Warner December 30th, 2011

Being a programmer, my eye for the artistic is rather lacking. I’ve used adobe’s program before for colors but most of these are new to me. Pictaculous, is a good find! Thanks.

Yesta @Graphic Design December 30th, 2011

I’m a big fan of ColorLovers, there I can find what I need. ColorLovers is the only one that I know from this list but I’ll enjoy watching on the others sites.

René Vella December 30th, 2011

Nice collection!
I know one very useful resource for picking website colors: http://www.colorcombos.com/

Mori January 1st, 2012

Until now I really just looked into photoshop to find the colors I want to use, also take in mind that each website should use different, unique, and suited colors.
I think ColoRate provides a long range of colors, I liked it.

Rita Lee January 2nd, 2012

@Thomas,
Very handy tools. I certainly can use them, like ColoRotate

Intravec Designs January 3rd, 2012

Thanks for the info… I can add these to my collection of palette ideas

Alex January 16th, 2012

Nice list ! I think this one is very useful too : http://www.colorhexa.com/

Rajan Arora February 15th, 2012

It’s a nice information.

Russ March 9th, 2012

I love that people spend time to make helpful resources like this.

Ryan S April 25th, 2012

woooowww really great collection thanks for sharing, this is really useful.

Sridevi July 11th, 2012

Thanks for the article. It’s informative. Of all of them I personally liked Pictaculous.

Mandy July 13th, 2012

There is one other nice color tool: Colllor.com.

jorden January 17th, 2013

so nice and usefully tool color study