Design Guide
How to Choose Colors for a Small Website or Brand
Learn a simple way to choose brand or website colors using a base color, contrast, palette balance, and reusable CSS values.
Choosing colors for a small website or brand does not need to become a full design crisis. Start with one base color that fits the feeling you want: calm, bold, friendly, premium, playful, or practical.
After choosing a base color, build a small palette around it. A useful starting set is one primary color, one darker shade, one lighter shade, one neutral background, and one accent color.
Contrast matters more than vibes. Text needs to be readable against the background. Buttons need to stand out. Important actions should not blend into the page.
Keep the palette small at first. Too many colors can make a website feel messy. A clean palette with consistent usage usually looks more professional than a rainbow toolbox situation.
Once you find colors you like, save the HEX values or CSS variables so you can reuse them consistently across buttons, cards, links, backgrounds, and headings.
Try the free calculator
Use this Goodfolk Toolbox calculator to make the planning step faster.
Open Color Palette Generator