Monochromatic Color Palette Generator

One hue, many lightnesses

A monochromatic palette keeps a single hue and varies how light it is. This generator holds your base colour’s hue and saturation, and spreads the swatches evenly from 20% to 80% lightness in HSL, from a deep shade to a pale tint.

Unlike the other harmonies there is no turn round the wheel at all. Contrast comes only from light against dark, so the swatches always belong together.

When to use it

Monochromatic ranges are the backbone of design systems. A product’s blues run from a near-black for text, through the brand blue for buttons, to an almost-white for backgrounds, the way Tailwind’s 50–950 scales do. They also suit minimal and luxury brands, and charts that show one quantity at different strengths.

With only one hue, nothing stands out unless you make it. Use the darkest and lightest swatches for text and surfaces, check that the text meets contrast, and add a single complementary accent if something has to draw the eye. Ten swatches gives you a scale close to a design system’s.

Everything here runs in your browser. The colour palette generator has all six harmonies on one page, and the mode buttons above switch this one too, so you can compare a monochromatic palette with the others from the same base colour.