Open Color Palette: CMYK and RGB Swatches for Diagramming and Design, 2024–Present.

Overview

The color swatch files below provide designers, educators, and students with a basic palette of RGB and CMYK color swatches. These 266 swatches can be used in graphic design, illustration, architecture, planning, UX/UI, information graphics, and more.

New (June 2026) Version 2.0 File Package Includes

  • InDesign File (.indd)
  • InDesign Markup Language File (.idml)
  • PDF File (.pdf)
  • JPG File (.jpg)
  • EPS File (.eps)
  • Illustrator File (.ai)
  • Figma File (.fig)
  • PowerPoint File (.pptx)

Download the .zip folder here.

Background

In the mid-2000s, while working at an architecture firm in Boston, I was frequently asked to create colorized drawings of plans, sections, and elevations, as well as bubble diagrams for planning, infographics for marketing, and more. In many cases, a linework PDF from the architects or planners would arrive in my inbox, along with guidance on how to colorize and key the drawing. Sometimes I would also receive a marker sketch, usually on tracing paper. My job was to create a refined, editable, color-coded version of these diagrams and drawings. Frequently, these colorized drawings and diagrams were used to communicate programmatic groupings and decisions for a building or campus.

After meeting with the architects and planners, I would compile all relevant sketches, plans, color codings, and annotations into a single layered file. Over the years, I eventually developed a standardized color palette containing a standardized set of hues, tints, and shades. Since I was also charged with maintaining a consistent visual identity for the firm, I eventually added this color palette to the firm’s brand identity standards manual as a shared resource. Many years after leaving the firm, I still find myself continually using this resource in my teaching and practice.

Approach

When creating this color palette, I took what I would describe as a “hybrid” logical and perceptual approach. Without digressing too much, I will use “cyan” as a brief example. Of course, a simple way to define “cyan” is to start with 100% cyan, as defined in the CMYK1 (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key [for Black]. While this seems intuitive enough, things quickly get more complicated. First, the way “cyan” is described and understood is subjective. Also, CMYK and RGB2 (Red, Green, Blue) are completely different color systems with distinct color gamuts.3 RGB has a much wider color gamut than CMYK—so, again, using cyan as an example, the RGB cyan swatch provided is not at all achievable in CMYK (if converted, it would look “dull”). In other cases, the decision between RGB and CMYK was much more straightforward. Using the 100% pink swatches as an example—the CMYK pink swatch is basically created by directly converting [downsampling] the neighboring RGB swatch to CMYK.

It should also be noted that the color palette provided here in terms of color theory is fundamentally “incomplete.” What it perhaps lacks most is chroma (sometimes referred to as “colorfulness).4 Chroma was a term coined by Albert Henry Munsell5 in the early 1900s. Chroma might best be described as the amount of “grayness” perceived in color. Any edits, corrections, or suggestions to this resource are always welcome.

Notes, Tips and Tricks

  • The swatches provided do not contain or refer to PANTONE swatches. You will have to go to PANTONE for that.
  • Selecting a swatch, copying and pasting it into a new document (InDesign, etc) automatically adds that swatch into the swatches palette of the new document.
  • Printing documents that use these colors will look different depending on your printer, and viewing them on screen will also look different depending on your computer, device, or screen. That said, it is somewhat handy to have a color palette such as this pre-printed in a design studio so you have a better idea of what the color you select will look like when or if it prints on that printer.
  • There are tons of good books on color and color theory. If you are a beginner and are interested in learning more about color, I might suggest checking out Universal Principles of Color: 100 Key Concepts for Understanding, Analyzing, and Working with Color by Stephen Westland and Maggie Maggio.

Feedback and Suggestions

With utmost gratitude to those who have submitted feedback and suggestions. Please send edits, corrections, and suggestions to this address.

Footnotes

  1. “CMYK color model.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Apr 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK_color_model. ↩︎
  2. “RGB color model.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 May 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RGB_color_model. ↩︎
  3. “Gamut.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 May 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut. ↩︎
  4. “Colorfulness.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Mar 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorfulness. ↩︎
  5. “Albert Henry Munsell.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Dec 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Henry_Munsell. ↩︎

FILED IN: Design Research


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