Start With One Colour, Not Five
Pick one colour that represents your brand’s energy. Not your favourite colour. Not what is trending. The colour your customers would point to if they had to describe your business in one shade.
If you sell calming skincare products, that colour might be a muted sage. If you run a high-energy fitness brand, it might be a bold orange. Start with the feeling, not the hex code.
Once you have your primary colour, everything else builds from it.
Build Three Shades of Your Primary
Your primary colour needs three versions: a dark shade, a mid tone, and a light tint. You will use all three on different backgrounds and in different contexts.
If your primary is a deep navy, your mid tone might be that navy at 60 percent, and your light tint might be a pale blue. This gives you flexibility. Dark text on light backgrounds. Light text on dark backgrounds. The mid tone for accents and borders.
To find these shades, open any colour picker tool and adjust the lightness slider while keeping the hue the same. The three shades should feel like the same colour at different volumes, not three different colours.
Add One Accent Colour That Contrasts
Your accent colour is the one you use for buttons, calls to action, and highlights. It needs to contrast sharply with your primary so it pops.
The easiest way to find a good accent is to look at the colour wheel and pick something roughly opposite your primary. If your primary is blue, your accent might be a warm coral. If your primary is green, your accent might be a rich burgundy.
You only need one accent. Resist the urge to add four. More colours mean more inconsistency across platforms.
Add Two Neutrals and Stop
Pick one light neutral (off-white, cream, or pale grey) and one dark neutral (charcoal, dark grey, or near-black). These are your text and background colours.
Your final palette: one primary with three shades, one accent, one light neutral, one dark neutral. Six colours total. That is enough.
If you think you need more, you probably need fewer. Extra colours create confusion, not flexibility.
Test Every Colour on Every Platform
This is where most palettes fall apart. A colour that looks rich on your website looks washed out on Instagram. A colour that pops in an email looks muddy on a Story background.
Here is the test sequence:
- Create a simple grid with all six colours on a white background. Screenshot it.
- Upload it to Instagram as a Story. Check how it looks on a phone screen.
- Send yourself an email with those colours as the background and text. Read it on mobile.
- Put those colours on your website hero section. Check on desktop and mobile.
If any colour looks wrong in any context, adjust it. Do not adjust the context to fit the colour.
Check Contrast for Accessibility
Your dark neutral needs to pass a contrast check against your light neutral. Your accent needs to pass against white. Use a free contrast checker online. Aim for at least 4.5:1 for text and 3:1 for large text.
This is not just about accessibility. High-contrast colours look better on small screens and in bright environments. If your colours fail the contrast test, they fail the real-world test.
Save Your Palette as a Document
Write down every hex code. Name each colour. Create a simple one-page reference that anyone on your team can use.
Include:
- Hex codes for all six colours
- Which colours are for text, backgrounds, and accents
- A “do not use” section listing colours that are close to your brand but not part of the palette
- Examples of correct and incorrect colour combinations
This document replaces every “what colour should I use?” decision your team makes. It takes 20 minutes to create and saves hours of inconsistency.
Apply It Everywhere at Once
Change your Instagram bio link, your email header, your website CSS, your Canva brand kit, your Figma file, and your social templates all in one session. Not one per week. All at once.
The gap between deciding on a palette and actually applying it is where brands drift. If your Instagram still uses the old blue while your website uses the new one, your palette has already broken.
Pick a day. Change everything. Then never look back.
The Quick Version
If you need to do this in under an hour:
- Pick one primary colour that matches your brand energy
- Generate three shades (dark, mid, light) from it
- Pick one contrasting accent colour
- Pick one light and one dark neutral
- Test all six on Instagram, email, and web
- Check contrast ratios
- Document every hex code in one page
- Apply to every platform in one session
Six colours. One document. Every platform aligned. That is a brand colour palette that actually works.
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