Definition

What Is a Brand Colour Palette?

The defined set of colours used consistently across a brand's visual materials. Typically includes primary, secondary, and neutral colours with specific HEX, RGB, and CMYK values.

Related Terms

Brand Guidelines

Typography

Visual Hierarchy

Accessibility (A11y)

Design System

Example

A SaaS brand uses an indigo primary, a coral accent, and a grey neutral palette across its website, ads, and product UI.

Colour increases brand recognition by up to 80%, according to research by the University of Loyola, Maryland — making palette consistency one of the highest-ROI brand investments.

Synonyms:

Colour scheme, Brand colours

Acronyms:

-

What it applies to

Every visual output of a brand — website, marketing materials, product UI, social media, email, and print.

How to build a colour palette

  • Define primary colours: 1–2 colours that dominate the brand identity and appear most frequently.
  • Define accent colours: 1–2 colours used for CTAs, highlights, and interactive elements — typically higher contrast or higher energy than primary colours.
  • Define neutrals: White, off-white, light grey, mid grey, dark grey, and near-black — used for backgrounds, body text, and borders.
  • Add functional colours: Success (green), warning (amber), error (red) — used in UI states and form validation.
  • Specify every colour in HEX (web), RGB (screen), HSL (design tools), and CMYK (print).

In Webflow

Define all brand colours in Webflow's global colour swatches panel. Naming them clearly (e.g., "Brand — Primary Blue," "Neutral — 100") ensures consistent application across the project and makes global colour updates a single-click change rather than a find-and-replace exercise.

Accessibility check

Run every text/background colour combination through a contrast checker (WebAIM or Figma's Contrast plugin) before finalising the palette. Insufficient contrast is the most common WCAG failure and the easiest to fix at the palette stage.

Colour Palette: Common Questions Answered

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