Traditional painting wheel
Red and green; blue and orange; yellow and purple. These pairs are familiar guides in the red-yellow-blue model.
Understand. Compare. Create.
Complementary colours: pairs and contrasts
Identify opposite colours on a colour wheel and build combinations suited to the model you choose.
Pairs depend on the model
RGB / HSL wheel
Red and cyan; green and magenta; blue and yellow. In HSL, the opposite hue is found by adding 180° to the starting hue, modulo 360°.
A blue and yellow RGB example
Blue
#0000FFYellow
#FFFF00These hues are opposite in RGB. They create a strong hue contrast, but that does not guarantee that all their variants will be readable as text.
Balance the proportions
Choose one dominant colour and use its complement as an accent. Reducing the saturation of one helps soften the combination. Check lightness contrast separately for text and interface elements.
30 palettes. Your next idea starts here.
Get my free kit →Get the free colour kit: HEX/RGB codes and a project worksheet.