Color palette

A color palette is a short list that decides, early on, which colours a project will use, in what proportion and where. It usually has one dominant colour, one or two supporting tones and a small amount of accent. Floors, furniture, textiles and metal fittings belong to the palette just as much as paint.

How a palette is built

Most designers start from what is fixed: a floor that stays, a timber that is being kept, the stone on the facade. The palette then leans warm or cool depending on that material’s undertone. The 60-30-10 approach common in interiors suggests the dominant colour covers most surfaces, the second takes a smaller share and the accent only a little. It is a handy way of checking balance, not a law. Daylight direction matters too; the same grey looks cooler in a north-facing room.

Palettes in rendering

In visualization the palette becomes the backbone of the material library. Fixing it early keeps every image in the same family, even when camera angles change. In rooms with large surfaces, such as kitchens, the decision carries even more weight, as discussed in choosing kitchen cabinet colors.