Random Color Palette Generator, Press Space, Free

About the Random Color Palette generator

Sometimes you have no starting colour and just want ideas. The Random Color Palette generator draws five fresh colours each time you press the space bar. This page opens the same tool as the Color Palette Generator, set to the Random scheme, so there is nothing to type. Keep the swatches you like, replace the rest, and repeat until a set feels right.

The palette is made in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and no account is needed.

How to use it

The space bar works whenever no button or text field has focus. If you have just typed in a field, click on the page background first.

What random means here

A fully random colour is often dull or too dark to use. Each colour in this tool is drawn within limits on the HSL scale:

• Hue: any value from 0 to 360 degrees
• Saturation: 40 to 90 %
• Lightness: 30 to 75 %

In symbols, with $u_1, u_2, u_3$ three fresh random numbers between 0 and 1, one colour is

$h = 360\,u_1, \qquad s = 40 + 50\,u_2, \qquad l = 30 + 45\,u_3$

For example $u_1 = 0.5$, $u_2 = 0.5$, $u_3 = 0.5$ gives $h = 180$, $s = 65\,\%$ and $l = 52.5\,\%$, a medium teal.

Hue is unrestricted, so every part of the wheel can appear. The saturation floor of 40 % rules out greys, and the lightness range of 30 to 75 % rules out near-black and near-white. A lightness of 30 % still gives a deep colour, while 75 % gives a light one that is not washed out.

Why locking helps

Searching for a good palette is easier when you do not lose the good parts. Say the first draw gives one swatch you love. Lock it, then draw again and again until the other four suit it. The locked colour never changes, and neither does a swatch you have edited by hand and locked.

The same holds if you switch to another scheme. Choosing, say, Triadic brings back the Base colour field, and locked swatches keep their colours while the rest follow the scheme.

Editing a swatch

Each card has an editable Hex code. Type #ff6347 and the swatch becomes tomato, which is rgb(255, 99, 71). A valid colour applies at once. Invalid text shows a message beside the field and the swatch stays as it was. The card also shows rgb() and hsl() text and a Copy #rrggbb button.

Is it readable?

Every swatch shows a contrast ratio and a WCAG badge On white and On black. The ratio is $\frac{L_1 + 0.05}{L_2 + 0.05}$, using the lighter and darker luminance, and white on black scores 21:1. Badges read AAA from 7:1, AA from 4.5:1, AA Large from 3:1 and Fail below. Use them to see which swatches can carry text.

Using the result

The page address records the colours (as ?colors= followed by hex codes without #), so copying it saves a palette you like. Open it later and the same colours return.

To turn a favourite swatch into a themed set, copy its hex code into the base field of the Color Scheme Generator. To pick colours from a photo rather than at random, use the Color Extractor or the Average Color Finder.

Frequently asked questions