Here’s a set of questions and a detailed AI prompt, to get a custom color palette, just for your business and ideal customers.
Questions for the Site Owner
Selecting a website color palette is a methodical process that balances art, science, and strategy. It’s not just about what looks good to you, but also about what works effectively to communicate your brand, guide user behavior, and help people want to do business with you.
1. Define Your Brand’s Personality & Goals
Before you even open a color picker, you need a clear understanding of your brand. Ask yourself:
What problems am I solving? How does my business alleviate the “overwhelm” for my clients and make them feel good (confident, satisfied, energized, healthy)? What are people asking you to take care of for them?
What is my business? How is it unique or special?
Who is my target audience? (e.g., entrepreneurs, artists, corporate executives).
What is the core message of my brand? What emotions or feelings do I want them to experience? (e.g., trust, creativity, efficiency, luxury). What is the primary mood or emotion I want people to feel when they come to my site?
What are my brand values? (e.g., professionalism, innovation, simplicity, reliability).
2. About Your Ideal Customer
Who is your ideal customer or client? Describe them as if you know them personally. Give details, including their age, education, personality, what they are attracted to, what they are learning, what they dislike or hate.
What problems do your products or services solve for them? What are their most pressing problems right now?
What are their main goals for their business? How do they want their business to improve and grow?
What do they want to avoid when running their business or website?
Since colors affect people in different ways, knowing their personality can help pick colors that they will like and feel comfortable with.
3. Your goals for your business
What is the main goal for your website? Do you want to make money, build a community, promote performers, give solutions? Do you want it to have people call you to book an appointment, sign up for your newsletter, or take your course?
AI Prompt to Generate a Color Palette
This prompt has been designed to include the user’s answers to the questions, and generate a color palette based on them.
Prompt:
I need an accessible color palette for a WordPress website.
Brand Information: The business is [insert site owner’s answer to question 1].
Target Audience: My ideal customer is [insert site owner’s answer to question 2].
They want to avoid [insert what the customer wants to avoid].
Goals: The main goal of the site is [insert site owner’s answer to question 3].
Based on this information, generate a comprehensive color palette with emotional and symbolic meaning that fits the brand’s identity and target audience. For the Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Accent, Error, Warning, and Success colors, select a medium luminance value so they can be easily adjusted into light and dark shades. For the Text-on-dark and Text-on-light colors, provide an exact near-black and near-white hex code with a hint of color that will have at least WCAG AAA contrast with a wide range of background colors.
The palette must be returned as a JSON array with the following colors. Each object in the array should include a hex_code, a color_name from a well-known list, and a brief description of its emotional meaning.
The colors to include are:
- Primary: The dominant color representing the brand’s core identity.
- Secondary: A supporting color that complements the Primary.
- Tertiary: A third, less-used color for variety and subtle accents.
- Accent: A vibrant, high-contrast color for calls to action (CTAs), buttons, and other important elements.
- Text-on-dark: A color for light text on a dark background.
- Text-on-light: A color for dark text on a light background.
- Error: A color for showing error messages.
- Warning/Info: A color for warnings or informational messages.
- Success: A color for showing successful actions.
JSON Output Format:
[
{
"color_name": "...",
"hex_code": "...",
"description": "..."
},
... (repeat for all colors in the list)
]
```"
To make this into a full WordPress color palette, adjusted for proper contrast with white and black text, see my Color Palette Generator. It will even let you select which of the combinations of colors looks best for your site. Just copy the generated files into your child theme’s styles folder.
