How to make a color palette
- Start somewhere. Press Generate (or the space bar), describe your brand and let the AI suggest three palettes, take the colors of a photo, or pick a palette from the gallery.
- Keep what you love. Lock a color and generate again: the others change around it. Click a color to change it, or its code to copy it. Use 3 to 8 colors.
- Choose a harmony and a style. Analogous, complementary, triadic and more; pastel, vibrant, muted, earthy or deep.
- See it on your slides. The tool picks a background, a text color and an accent for contrast (or you choose), checks they read well, and draws a carousel in them.
- Use it. Copy the HEX codes, CSS variables, Tailwind or JSON, download the palette as a PNG, or open the app in these colors.
Color harmonies, explained
| Harmony | What it is | Feels |
|---|---|---|
| Analogous | Neighbors on the color wheel | Calm, natural |
| Complementary | Opposites on the wheel | Energetic, high contrast |
| Split complementary | One color and the two beside its opposite | Lively, but easier to balance |
| Triadic | Three colors evenly around the wheel | Playful, bold |
| Square | Four colors evenly around the wheel | Rich, needs one main color |
| Monochrome | One hue, lighter and darker | Clean, consistent |
With four colors or more, the generator also adds a very light and a very dark color of the same family, so the palette always has a background and a text color.
Contrast: will people be able to read it?
- Text on the background: at least 4.5:1 (WCAG AA); 7:1 is even better for small text on a phone.
- Large titles and icons: at least 3:1.
- Buttons: the text on your accent color needs 4.5:1 too.
The checks under the palette show each ratio. When no color reads well enough on the background, the slides use near-black or white for the text, and the tool tells you.
Background, text and accent
A palette becomes a brand when each color has a job. A common split is 60-30-10: about 60% background, 30% text and secondary colors, 10% accent for the words and buttons you want people to see. On your slides, choose which color does which job, or let the tool choose for contrast.
Free, and what the app adds
The palette generator is free, with no account. The AI suggestions have a daily limit, and a photo you use stays on your device. aiCarousels makes carousels, image posts and videos in your colors and fonts: write the idea, and every slide comes out on brand.
