When creating a personal color palette, a complementary color scheme is often the first choice. This scheme uses colors from opposite sides of the color wheel and can be expanded by incorporating tones, tints, and shades. For example, if your base color is bright purple, its complement would be grass green. However, direct opposites with the same chroma or value can sometimes feel too intense or dramatic. To soften the effect, you can introduce transitional colors like pale purple or tender green, or explore more complex color schemes.

A split-complementary color scheme offers a less intense alternative. Instead of using the direct opposite hue, it uses the colors on either side of it. Triadic and tetradic schemes are more challenging to balance but can produce striking results. Triadic harmonies consist of 3 colors equally spaced around the color wheel, like blue, yellow, and red. Tetradic schemes, also known as double complementary, use two pairs of complementary colors.