CSS Color Palette Generator

Why Use This Tool?

If you're working with design systems, themeable UI components, or simply want a clean, structured color setup, this tool gives you a fast way to generate consistent palettes and ready-to-use CSS variables. It eliminates guesswork and repetitive adjustments while supporting modern formats and naming conventions.

Why I Made This Tool

As a developer, I often found myself wasting time manually building color palettes and rewriting CSS variables across projects. Most existing tools were either too rigid, too complex, or didn’t support the level of customization I needed. I built this generator to simplify that process — to make color exploration faster, variable output cleaner, and integration with design systems more flexible. It's a tool I needed myself, and hopefully one that saves others time too.

1. Select a Base Color

Start by choosing a base color using the HEX input field or by adjusting the HSLA sliders in the first group. These four sliders — hue, saturation, lightness, and alpha — allow you to define and refine the starting color that serves as the foundation for the entire palette. You can lock or unlock this base to control whether it remains fixed or participates in shift-based variation.

2. Set the Number of Colors

Use the palette size selector to choose how many colors to generate — anywhere from 1 to 24. This defines the number of steps the shifts will apply to, creating a full scale from the base color. Fewer colors result in broader steps, while more colors create finer gradients across the palette.

3. Choose a Color Scheme

Pick from a range of color harmony options such as monochromatic (default), analogous, triadic, complementary, split complementary, or tetradic. These schemes are based on established color theory and help you create visually balanced palettes with minimal effort.

4. Apply Incremental Shifts

Use the second group of HSLA sliders to apply incremental shifts across the palette. Each shift — hue, saturation, lightness, and alpha — modifies the base color step by step, allowing you to generate smooth gradients, tonal variations, or layered transparencies consistently across multiple color variables.

5. Copy the CSS

Once you're happy with the result, the tool automatically generates CSS variables in HEX, RGB(A), or HSL(A), depending on each color’s transparency. You can copy the generated code directly and paste it into your style.css file — no extra formatting needed.

Intuitive HSLA Controls

Adjust your base color using straightforward sliders for hue, saturation, lightness, and alpha — each moving in consistent steps of 1. This setup is designed for quick exploration and easy control, giving you just enough flexibility to create well-balanced palettes without overcomplicating the process.

Copy Individual Colors

Each color in the palette can be copied individually as a HEX value. This allows for quick access to specific colors without needing to export or parse the full CSS output.

Harmonious Color Schemes

Instantly generate color palettes based on established color theory models. Choose from monochromatic, analogous, complementary, split complementary, triadic, and tetradic schemes — all designed to help you create visually consistent themes without manual calculations.

Custom CSS Variable Naming

Define how your CSS variables are structured using four naming inputs: Var prefix, Var name, Index start, and Index step. This setup gives you full control over how variables are labeled, making them easier to organize and integrate into your codebase or design system.

Multiple Color Formats

Each color variable is automatically output in the most appropriate format based on its alpha value: HEX, RGB, or HSL for fully opaque colors; RGBA or HSLA when transparency is applied. This logic ensures clean, optimized CSS without unnecessary alpha channels. More export formats will be available in future updates.

Incremental Shifts

Apply step-based shifts to hue, saturation, lightness, and alpha across your palette. These shifts can be combined with any color scheme to create smooth transitions, tonal depth, or layered transparencies — ideal for gradients, component states, and consistent theme scaling.

Export Options

While the core purpose of this tool is to generate CSS variables, you can also export your palette as a PNG image for quick reference or visual documentation. This feature is useful for sharing palettes with collaborators or previewing your color set outside a coding environment. More export formats will be available in the future.

Get in Touch

Have feedback, feature suggestions, or found a bug? This tool is a personal project, and your input helps improve it. Feel free to email [email protected] — whether it’s to share how you’re using the generator, suggest an idea, or report an issue. Every message is read and appreciated.

About

CSSpale is a personal project built by a developer who wanted a fast, structured way to create CSS color palettes with consistent naming and format output. It's open, simple, and made to be genuinely useful to others working with design systems or frontend development.