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Color Wheel

An interactive colour wheel with every classical harmony.

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The wheel

The scheme 
The colours appear here

Quick Tool Overview

The Color Wheel is an interactive wheel with every classical harmony built in — drag a point and the scheme follows the rule, in either the RGB wheel a screen displays or the RYB wheel traditional colour theory uses.

What it does
Finds harmonious colours on an interactive wheel
You give it
A starting point and a harmony rule
You get back
The full scheme, live, with values
Best for
Exploring colour relationships quickly
Color Tools Free, unlimited use No sign-up Runs in your browser

About the Color Wheel

The colour wheel is the oldest tool in colour theory and still the fastest way to find colours that go together. Drag a point around it and the harmony you have chosen follows, with every colour in the scheme updating as you move.

All the classical relationships are here: complementary at 180 degrees, analogous within 30, triadic at 120, tetradic and square, and split complementary. Each one is a fixed geometric relationship, which is exactly why they work — the colours share a formal structure whether or not anyone can name it.

Saturation is the radius and lightness is a slider, so you can explore the whole solid rather than the ring alone, and each scheme is previewed as a real layout rather than a row of squares. Both wheels are available: the RGB wheel a screen actually displays, and the RYB wheel from traditional colour theory, which puts the complement of red at green rather than cyan and is what a painter or a printer means by the term.

Key features of the Color Wheel

Six harmonies

Complementary, analogous, triadic, tetradic, square and split complementary, each a fixed geometric relationship.

Both wheels

RGB for screens, where red’s complement is cyan, and RYB for paint and ink, where it is green.

The whole solid

Saturation is the radius and lightness is a slider, so you can explore past the outer ring.

Previewed as a layout

Each scheme shown as real elements rather than a row of squares, which is where balance becomes visible.

Copy any part

One colour, or the whole harmony as CSS.

How to use the Color Wheel

  1. 1

    Choose a harmony

    Complementary, analogous, triadic, tetradic, square or split complementary.

  2. 2

    Drag the point

    Around the wheel for hue, outward for saturation. The other points follow the rule.

  3. 3

    Adjust the lightness

    The wheel is one slice of the colour solid; the slider moves through the rest.

  4. 4

    Take the scheme

    Copy any colour, or the whole harmony as CSS.

Frequently asked questions

RGB if the output is a screen — it is what the display actually does, and its complements are the ones that produce true grey when mixed as light. RYB if you are working with paint or ink, or talking to someone trained in traditional colour theory.

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