Color is a key part of user experience. But picking a palette in Figma or from a color picker isn’t enough — you want to see how those colors actually behave in real-world UI elements like buttons, navbars, alerts, and backgrounds.
🆕 Update (June 2025): This post has been updated with new tools and tips for better palette visualization.
Here are 5 free tools that turn your color palette into real UI components, so you can design faster and smarter — without guessing.
🎨 1. Realtime Colors
What it does:
Lets you edit and preview your color palette live across headings, buttons, cards, and layouts.
Use it for:
- Prototyping a design system
- Creating accessible color pairs quickly
Pros:
- Live editing of text, background, primary, secondary colors
- Preview across actual web components
- Export as Tailwind config or CSS variables
Cons:
- Limited component variety (basic layout only)
- No dark mode preview out of the box
🧰 2. PaletteMaker
What it does:
Generates harmonious color palettes and previews them on mock UI, branding, and illustrations.
Use it for:
- Visualizing colors across web + print branding
- Exporting to design tools like Procreate or CSS
Pros:
- Real-world preview in branding, UI, illustration
- Export formats: Procreate swatches, Adobe ASE, CSS
- AI-enhanced palette generation from keywords
Cons:
- Some advanced features are behind login
- Design previews are fixed (can’t customize layout)
🧭 3. Material Design Color Tool
What it does:
Google’s official tool for generating Material Design 3 color systems — with auto-generated light/dark themes.
Use it for:
- Ensuring accessibility and consistency in design systems
- Working with Material Design specs
Pros:
- Auto-generates full palettes from a single seed color
- Built-in contrast checking (WCAG AA/AAA)
- Exports Material tokens for Android/web
Cons:
- Focused on Material Design — not customizable for other UI systems
- Doesn’t support arbitrary layout previews
🎨 4. Happy Hues
What it does:
A curated set of color palettes applied to a real website layout — great for learning how colors interact in practice.
Use it for:
- Color palette inspiration
- Seeing how colors are used across entire page sections
Pros:
- Carefully designed palettes by real designers
- See how text, background, accent colors work together
- Learn real-world layout color usage
Cons:
- No option to upload or preview your custom colors
- Palettes are fixed (read-only)
🌈 5. Coolors' Palette Visualizer
What it does:
A lightning-fast color palette generator with live visualizer for websites, artboards, and more.
Use it for:
- Quickly generating or fine-tuning palettes
- Previewing how your colors apply to sample UIs and artboards
Pros:
- Beautiful, fast interface
- Offers UI mockups and artboard previews
- Export to PNG, SCSS, SVG, PDF, and more
Cons:
- Limited interactivity in visualizer
- Some features require login or Pro plan
💡 Bonus Tip
Want to create your own palette and see it in real Tailwind components? You can also try:
- 🛠 Tailwind Ink
- 💻
chroma-jsfor programmatic palette generation - 🎨 Figma plugins like Prism, Color Style Generator, or Hue
- 🌈 Coolors Visualizer to preview palettes in mock UI
🚀 Wrap-up
Choosing colors is easy — applying them meaningfully is the real challenge.
These tools bridge the gap between color theory and UI implementation, helping you build beautiful, accessible interfaces without reinventing the wheel.
Did I miss your favorite tool? Drop it in the comments! 👇
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