A color lab and a design publication
Palettes are systems, not swatches.
Palettos helps you generate, version, test and ship color systems — and explains the reasoning behind every decision, so the palette still makes sense a year from now.
Not just another color tool
Most palette generators stop at the moment a palette is born: five pleasant hues in a strip. But the hard problems in color start later. Which of those five is the button? Does the text pass contrast on every surface? What happens in dark mode? Who changed the brand blue last spring, and why?
Palettos is built around those later questions. Every color has a semantic role. Every change to a system is versioned with a written reason. Every palette can be seen in real layouts, simulated for color vision deficiency, and — if your work leaves the screen — translated into a pigment recipe.
Alongside the tools, our editors publish long-form guides and case studies on the practice of color systems, reviewed for accuracy against current standards like WCAG 2.2 and the W3C Design Tokens format.
Seven modules, one system
Generator
Describe a mood. Get five colors with roles, names and written reasoning.
System
Version history, drift detection, usage tracking and exports to tokens, Tailwind and ASE.
Preview
Websites, apps, posters, dashboards and rooms — rendered by role, in light and dark.
Accessibility
WCAG 2.2 matrices, color-blind simulation, and palettes generated for specific needs.
Extractor
Pull a role-assigned system with tonal ramps from any image, in your browser.
Physical
Mixing recipes for oil, acrylic, watercolor, dye, stain and concrete.
Timeline
Color scripts for brand evolution and story arcs, interpolated in LCh.
From the journal
All articles →Mira Okonkwo-Lind · 7 min
Why semantic color roles matter more than hue harmony
Color-wheel harmony tells you which hues look nice together. It says nothing about which color should be the button. That second question is the one that breaks products.
Tomás Reyes · 8 min
Designing palettes for deuteranopia: a practical guide
Red–green color vision deficiency affects roughly 1 in 12 men of Northern European descent. Here is how to design for it from the first swatch rather than patching it at the end.
Mira Okonkwo-Lind · 7 min
The lifecycle of a brand color system
Brand colors are born in a workshop, adolescent in a style guide, and middle-aged in a codebase with forty shades of 'primary'. Here's how to manage every stage deliberately.