Material Design Color Generator

About Material Design Color Generator

Material palette generator tools create the full range of tones that Material Design requires from a single base color. This free browser-based tool generates Material Design 3 and Material Design 2 palettes, including role colors and accent swatches, with export options for JSON tokens, CSS, and Tailwind config. No account or software required.

A Material Design color generator is a tool that creates the full tonal palette required by Google's Material Design system from a single base color. Material Design 3 (Material You), released by Google in 2021 and used across Android 12+, defines color through a tonal system rather than fixed named colors. Material Design Color Generator supports both Material Design 3 and Material Design 2. In MD3 mode, it generates a 10-stop tone scale (tones 100 through 10) and five semantic role colors: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Surface, and Error. In MD2 mode, it generates the standard 14-stop palette: main shades 50 through 900 and accent shades A100, A200, A400, A700. Each swatch is clickable to copy its HEX code. The palette can be exported as JSON design tokens (compatible with Figma Tokens Studio), CSS custom properties, or a Tailwind CSS configuration snippet. This is useful for building Android and Flutter applications that follow Material Design guidelines, generating design tokens from a brand color, extending an existing Material theme, or exploring how a color behaves across its full tonal range. The tool runs entirely in the browser with no server communication. For a finer-grained light-to-dark scale, Tint & Shade Generator generates a custom range. For format conversion, Color Converter handles HEX, RGB, HSL, and HSV.

Material Design Color Generator is most useful at the start of a new project that targets Android, Flutter, or Material-based web frameworks, where the design system expects a specific tonal structure rather than arbitrary named colors. By entering the brand primary color and switching between MD3 and MD2 views, developers and designers can immediately see the full color range that the design system will derive from that seed color. In MD3 projects, the tone scale (100 through 10) maps directly to the container, on-container, and surface color roles defined in the Material Design specification. Tone 40 is typically the Primary color used on light surfaces; Tone 80 is the Primary Container on dark surfaces. The Secondary and Tertiary role colors are generated by rotating the hue, providing coordinated supporting colors without manual palette work. In MD2 projects, the 500 shade is the standard primary reference color, the 50 through 300 range covers backgrounds and light surfaces, and the 700 through 900 range covers darker states and pressed feedback. Accent shades (A100 to A700) are higher-saturation variants used for emphasis elements like FABs and selected states. The exported CSS custom properties follow a naming convention compatible with most design token systems. The Tailwind config export generates an object that can be merged directly into the colors section of tailwind.config.js, making the Material palette immediately available as Tailwind color classes. For a deeper exploration of how the colors relate, use Contrast Checker to verify WCAG contrast ratios between tone pairs, or Tint & Shade Generator to generate an alternative custom scale for comparison.

How to use Material Design Color Generator

  1. Pick your base color using the color picker or enter a HEX code
  2. Switch between Material Design 3 and Material Design 2 tabs to see the full palette
  3. Click any swatch to copy its HEX, or export the full palette as JSON, CSS, or Tailwind config

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Material Design 3 and Material Design 2?
Material Design 3 (Material You) uses a dynamic tonal system based on a single seed color and defines semantic role colors (Primary, Secondary, Surface). Material Design 2 uses a fixed palette structure with numbered shades and separate accent swatches.
What are Material Design color roles?
In MD3, role colors define the purpose of each color in the UI: Primary is the main brand color, Secondary is a supporting color, Tertiary is an accent, Surface is used for backgrounds and cards, and Error is used for error states.
Can I use the exported JSON tokens in Figma?
Yes. The JSON token format is compatible with design token plugins for Figma such as Tokens Studio. Import the JSON to use the tokens in your Figma design files.
Does Material Design Color Generator send my data to a server?
No. All color generation happens in your browser. No color values or data are sent to any server.
Does Material Design Color Generator work on mobile and tablet devices?
Yes. Material Design Color Generator is fully responsive and works in all modern browsers on desktop, mobile, and tablet. No app or installation needed.
Is there a limit on how many times I can use Material Design Color Generator?
No. Material Design Color Generator is completely free with no usage limits. Use it as many times as you need without creating an account or paying any fees.
How accurate is the generated palette compared to official Material Design tools?
The tone generation uses HSL interpolation, which is an approximation of the official Material Design tonal palette algorithm (which uses HCT color space). For production apps, the official material-color-utilities library provides the exact MD3 algorithm.

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