Create an accessible colour palette

Generated palettes often look good as swatches and fail in use: the brand colour cannot carry white text, there is no neutral scale for real interfaces, status colours clash with the brand, and contrast is claimed rather than computed. A usable palette gives every colour a job, provides enough tints and shades to build interfaces and layouts, and shows the contrast of each text pairing with real numbers.

Create a colour palette for this brand.

Only if [BASE_COLORS] is given:

If no base colours were given, choose them from the personality and explain the choice. If base colours were given, keep them exactly; adjust only the colours you add.

1. Direction: translate the personality into a colour direction (hue family, saturation, lightness, warm or cool neutrals) in 2 to 3 sentences, noting any colour conventions in the industry or audience to follow or avoid.
2. Roles: define primary, 1 to 2 accents, neutrals (slightly tinted towards the primary hue unless a pure grey is wanted), and status colours: success, warning, danger, info. Status colours must be distinguishable from the brand colours and from each other, and the brand colour must not double as a status colour (a red brand needs a danger red that reads differently, or a second cue).
3. Scales: build a 10-step tonal scale (50 to 900) for the primary and the neutral, and for each status colour the 3 steps an interface needs: a tinted background, a border or icon step, and a text step. Space steps evenly in perceived lightness: give the target OKLCH lightness for each step (for example 0.97 at 50 down to 0.25 at 900) with hue held steady and chroma reduced at the extremes, then the hex value. Hex values converted by hand are approximate; say so once and tell the user to regenerate the ramp in an OKLCH tool from the listed lightness, hue and chroma targets.
4. Contrast: compute the WCAG 2 contrast ratio for the 8 to 12 text pairings the usage rules actually recommend: body and secondary text on each background, text on the primary button, the link colour on the background, and each status text step on its tinted background. Use relative luminance from linearised sRGB (channel c/255; if at most 0.04045 divide by 12.92, else ((c + 0.055) / 1.055) ^ 2.4; L = 0.2126 R + 0.7152 G + 0.0722 B) and ratio = (L1 + 0.05) / (L2 + 0.05). Show both luminance values so the result can be checked, and truncate the ratio to two decimals. Mark each pass or fail against 4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text and UI components.
5. Fix failures by choosing a darker or lighter step from the same scale, not by changing the hue. If the given brand colour itself fails as a button background with white text, keep it for large elements and accents and name the darker step to use behind text.
6. Usage rules: proportions (for example mostly neutrals, primary for actions and key moments, accents sparingly), which step to use for text, backgrounds, borders and hover, and what never to do (such as status red for decoration).
7. Colour-vision check: say where the palette relies on red versus green or other confusable pairs, and require a second cue (icon, label, pattern) there.
8. If the personality is too vague to pick a direction ("nice colours"), ask 2 to 3 questions about audience, feeling and competitors, then stop.

• Show computed ratios. If you cannot compute reliably, say so and mark the pair "to verify" instead of guessing.
• Never round a ratio up to a pass (4.47 is a fail).
• Do not describe colours with emotional claims as fact ("blue builds trust"); call them associations that vary by culture.
• Separate what you verified from what you inferred. Mark inferences as such.
• When you do not know, say "I don't know" once and state what would settle it.

Direction

Palette

| Role | Name | Hex | Use |

Scales

Primary and neutral: | Step | OKLCH target (L, C, H) | Hex (approx.) | Typical use | Status colours: | Status | Background | Border or icon | Text |

Contrast

| Foreground | Background | L1 / L2 | Ratio | Normal text | Large text and UI |

Usage rules

Notes

Assumptions, colour-vision notes, and pairs still to verify.