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Colour schemes

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Colour schemes

These are different colour schemes using your currently-selected colour #3554AC. All of these schemes can be created using the Make swatches colour tool.

How to change the colour on which these schemes are based: 1) Use our colour tools to change colours, 2) click on any linked colour square on this page or 3) enter a new hex colour value in the form.

Colour wheels are used to illustrate most of the colour schemes (they are square because they have been implemented in simple HTML). The wheels contain 16 basic variations of hue. The currently-selected colour is always at the top-left corner. Bookmark this page to recreate specific colour schemes.

Saturation

	#3554AC S: 53%
	#445BA2 S: 41%
	#516294 S: 29%
	#5F6986 S: 17%

A saturation colour scheme consists of colours of a specific hue at different values of saturation.

Monochromatic

	#3554AC L: 45%
	#5774CB L: 57%
	#869BDA L: 69%
	#B5C2E8 L: 81%

A monochromatic colour scheme consists of colours of a specific hue at different values of lightness. This kind of colour scheme can be combined with any of the schemes described next.

Analogous

Analogous colours are adjacent colours with regard to hue. You can make some of the colours less prominent by making them less saturated, lighter or darker.

These are the four four-colour analogous schemes using the current colour.

	#3554AC
	#4636B0
	#7336B0
	#A136B0

	#3681B0
	#3554AC
	#4636B0
	#7336B0

	#36B0B0
	#3681B0
	#3554AC
	#4636B0

	#36B083
	#36B0B0
	#3681B0
	#3554AC

Complement

	#3554AC
	#B09136

The complementary colour is the difference of 180° hue to a specific colour. Vary the lightness and saturation of colours after calculating the hue.

Split complement

	#3554AC
	#B06536
	#9FB036

A split-complementary colour scheme consists of the current colour and the two adjacent colours of its complement (by hue). Vary the lightness and saturation of two of the colours.

Alternate complement

	#3554AC
	#B06536
	#B09136
	#9FB036

An alternate-complementary consists of a colour, its complement and the complement's two adjacent colours. Vary the lightness and saturation, as needed.

Triad

	#3554AC
	#54B036
	#B03654

In a triadic colour scheme, three colours are separated by 120° hue. This scheme generates the ubiqutous red-green-blue colour scheme.

To create a triadic colour scheme, set the variation amount for hue to 120° and the number of swatches per row to three.

Tetrad

	#3554AC
	#B03691
	#B09136
	#36B054

In a tetradic colour scheme, four colours are separated by 90° hue.

To create a tetradic colour scheme, in the swatch tool, set the variation amount for hue to 90°, the number of swatches per row to at least five and choose any four consecutive hues.

Double complement

	#3554AC
	#B09136
	#4636B0
	#9FB036

	#3554AC
	#B09136
	#7336B0
	#73B036

	#3554AC
	#B09136
	#A136B0
	#44B036

A double complement consists of any two pairs or complementary colours. As with all the other colour schemes, vary the lightness and saturation of the resulting colours as needed.

The number of four-colour schemes using double complement you can create depends on how you divide the colour wheel.

In these examples, the colour wheel has been divided into sixteen divisions. This produces a total of seven double complement colour schemes, including the standard tetrad.

	#3554AC
	#B09136
	#B03663
	#36B083

	#3554AC
	#B09136
	#B03636
	#36B0B0

	#3554AC
	#B09136
	#B06536
	#3681B0

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