algorithmic-color-palette
Algorithmic Colour Palette
A brand palette of 2–3 colours is not enough for a UI. You need shades for states (hover, active, disabled), neutrals for backgrounds and borders, and semantic colours for status. Deriving these algorithmically from the brand colours produces a palette that feels coherent — everything is visually related to the brand rather than pulled from a generic grey or a stock colour library.
Deriving Interactive State Colours
From each brand colour, generate at minimum three variants: base, darker (hover/active), lighter (tint/background).
Method: HSL adjustment
base: hsl(H, S%, L%)
hover: hsl(H, S%, L% - 8%) ← darken by reducing lightness
active: hsl(H, S%, L% - 14%) ← darken further
tint: hsl(H, S%, L% + 40%) ← lighten significantly for backgrounds
subtle: hsl(H, S% * 0.3, L% + 45%) ← heavily desaturated, near-white
Example: brand primary #133174 (hsl 224, 70%, 27%)
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