Usually when I begin a design I choose a particular color hex and just start working with monochromatic colors that seem to look good with the selection. I’m definitely not an expert in color (as you can see from my blog design), but when I’m working on a project for someone else I try to do a professional job.

My girlfriend tells me I’m not the most color-coordinated person in the world, and I have reason to believe her. I can’t pick colors that go well together out of the hat so I researched a couple of easy ways to get the job done. Luckily for you I have them bookmarked and am willing to share what I’ve found.

Color Schemer

Color Schemer does a decent job of finding great monochromatic matches (my favorite, really). The controls are easy and the site is well laid out. Unfortunately, it does not offer many advanced features like web-safe only colors or other color schemes such as complementary/triad/etc. Color Schemer offers a HEX input and will configure its palette to your color choice.

4096 Color Wheel

4096 Color Wheel offers a swatch and a color wheel. This picker is all about web safe colors and offers a sidebar to add your favorite choices. Nothing here to find complementing color schemes.

Color Schemes Generator 2

This tool offers so many different things. Color variations (Default Pastel Dark pastel Light pastel Contrast Pale), an option to reduce to safe colors, and full color matching (monochromatic, triad, contrast, tetrad, analogic), and a slew of other neat controls. This is also one of my favorites and a must see.

ColorDB

Colordb is a robust little tool that is good at picking out complimentary colors. There isn’t much documentation on the little bugger, but I did happen to notice that it gives a neat little template preview towards the bottom-right with your color choices. Check it out, see if it’s for you.

Behr’s Color Explorer

This is a neat flash app to choose some nice color schemes. This was made with interior/exterior design in mind– but use Pixie to grab hex!

Accessibility Color Wheel

Use the Accessibility Colorwheel to choose optimal background and foreground combinations. If you want some new ideas for contrasting colors, definitely take a look!

Colour Lovers

Explore color combinations other designers are using. This is a great tool to imply some of your own and gather others’ colors for inspiration and other ideas. Use with other tools above for best results.

Well, there you have it. If you use something else or have an idea don’t hesitate to share!