Color Wheel

Spin ten real color swatches and copy the winning hex code.

About this tool

About the Color Wheel

On the Color Wheel, each segment is painted in the color it represents, so what you see spinning is an actual palette, not a list of words. It ships with ten swatches spanning the spectrum plus brown and gray, and when the wheel stops you can copy the winner's hex code, like #2E5BFF for blue, straight into your design tool.

Random color picks are surprisingly useful as constraints. Artists spin to set the dominant color of a daily sketch, designers spin to escape their habit of reaching for the same blue, and teachers spin to assign team colors without debate. Because the constraint comes from outside your own taste, it pushes work somewhere you would not have chosen deliberately.

Four quick steps

How to use it

  1. Spin the wheel and watch it land on a painted segment.
  2. Copy the hex code of the winning color if you need it digitally.
  3. Apply the color as your constraint: paint with it, design around it, or wear it.
  4. Spin twice for a two-color palette challenge.

Starting options

What is on the wheel

Ten swatches painted onto the segments, spanning the spectrum plus two neutrals, each with a hex code you can copy.

Red
A warm mid red rather than a pillar-box one, so it reads as an accent instead of an alarm. Copy #E5484D when you want heat without shouting.
Orange
The most attention-grabbing segment on the wheel, and a useful daily-sketch constraint precisely because few people reach for orange when they are choosing freely.
Yellow
Light enough that dark text sits on it comfortably and white text does not. Worth landing on for a highlight colour, or a team colour that stays visible outdoors.
Green
A natural mid green, closer to foliage than to neon. The result to want for a landscape sketch prompt, or when a palette needs something restful.
Teal
Sits between green and blue, which makes it the awkward one to use and therefore the interesting one to be handed. Copy #12A594 for an unfamiliar accent.
Blue
The default many designers reach for anyway, so treat it as a control result. If your work already leans blue, delete this segment before you spin.
Purple
Strong and slightly theatrical, hard to pair casually. A good forced constraint for a poster or a nail-polish pick, less so for a large flat background.
Pink
A saturated pink that carries as an accent rather than a wash. Land here when you want a sketch or a page spread to feel deliberate and loud.
Brown
The quiet result, and the one people re-spin. Worth keeping: brown forces texture and material thinking in a way the brighter segments do not.
Gray
A true neutral with no colour cast, useful as a base you build around. If you only want hues, remove this segment and brown before you spin.

Useful moments

Good for

  • Daily drawing prompts where the spin sets the dominant color
  • Breaking design habits by forcing an unfamiliar accent color
  • Assigning team colors for games and sports days
  • Choosing a nail polish, sticky-note, or bullet-journal color

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Can I put my own colours on the wheel?

Yes. Each segment takes a custom colour, so you can paste in a brand palette, a set of paint names, or the six pencils you actually own, and rename the labels to match. The edited wheel is saved in your browser.

How do I get a palette rather than a single colour?

Spin two or three times and work with whatever comes up. Turn on no-repeat if you want a different colour each spin rather than the same one twice, and check spin history to read back the order they landed in.

Will the hex code match what I see on screen?

The swatch is drawn from the hex value, so the code itself is exact. What your eye sees is not, since monitors and phone screens are calibrated differently. Trust the copied code rather than the on-screen appearance when the colour has to be reproduced elsewhere.

Can I use it to assign team colours?

Yes, and no-repeat is the setting that matters, since it stops the same colour going to two teams. Spin once per team, and delete the pairs that are hard to tell apart at a distance, such as teal and green, before you start.

Keep deciding

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