Khroma for Designers: AI Color Tool That Learns Your Taste

Khroma is a color palette generator that learns what colors you like. Instead of browsing random combinations or scrolling through curated palettes, you train a neural network on your preferences. Pick 50 colors you’re drawn to, and Khroma generates thousands of combinations it predicts you’ll like, complete with accessibility ratings and multiple view options.

Designers use Khroma to quickly find palettes that match their aesthetic without sorting through irrelevant suggestions. It’s free, requires no signup, and particularly useful when you know the general vibe you want but need help finding the right color relationships.

Key Specs

How Designers Use Khroma

Finding Color Palettes That Match Your Style

Train Khroma once by selecting 50 colors you like. The AI learns your preferences and generates combinations that feel right for your aesthetic. If you gravitate toward muted pastels, it won’t show you neon palettes. If you like high-contrast, saturated colors, it filters accordingly. Designers use this to quickly narrow down to palettes that feel “on brand” without conscious analysis.

Checking Color Accessibility in Real Time

Every palette shows WCAG contrast ratings for text on backgrounds. Khroma displays separate scores for normal text (smaller than 18pt) and large text (18pt+), indicating AA and AAA compliance. Filter by accessibility level to see only combinations that meet your standards. Useful when designing interfaces where accessibility isn’t optional but you still want aesthetically strong palettes.

Exploring Color Relationships and Harmonies

View palettes as typography (headline + body text), gradients, images with color overlays, or simple color blocks. Seeing how colors interact in different contexts helps you evaluate whether a palette works for your actual use case. A gradient view might reveal that two colors clash when blended, while the typography view shows whether text remains readable.

Saving and Organizing Color Systems

Build a library of palettes you like by clicking the heart icon. Your saved palettes persist in the browser, creating a personal collection. Designers use this to gather options during exploration phases, then return to compare favorites side by side. Each saved palette includes hex codes for easy export to design tools.

Khroma vs. Alternatives

Choose Khroma if: You want palettes that match your taste automatically and need built-in accessibility checking.

Choose Coolors if: You want fast, random palette generation with more export formats and manual color adjustments.

Choose Adobe Color if: You’re already in Creative Cloud and want direct integration with Photoshop, Illustrator, and XD.

Choose Paletton if: You want palettes generated from color theory rules (analogous, triadic, complementary) rather than aesthetic preferences.

Choose Huemint if: You want AI palette generation for specific interface contexts (websites, posters, gradients) without training.

Getting Started with Khroma

Step 1: Train the AI on your preferences

Visit khroma.co and click “Start training.” You’ll see a grid of 50 colors. Click every color you like—don’t overthink it. Trust your gut. The AI learns from patterns in your selections, so pick a variety. Click “View favorites and train” when you’ve selected 50. The neural network trains in seconds.

Step 2: Browse generated palettes

Khroma displays an infinite scroll of color combinations. Each palette shows color names, hex codes, and accessibility ratings. Use the view toggle to switch between typography, gradient, image, and block views. See how palettes look in different contexts before committing.

Step 3: Filter and save

Use search and filter tools to narrow results. Search by color name (“coral”), hex code, or hue. Filter by color count (2-color, 3-color, 4-color pairs). Filter by accessibility level to show only WCAG-compliant combinations. Click the heart icon on palettes you like to save them for later. Your saved collection appears in the “Saved” tab.

Khroma in Your Design Workflow

Khroma fits into the early color exploration phase, after you understand project requirements but before committing to a specific palette.

• Before Khroma: Gather inspiration from mood boards, client brand guidelines, competitor analysis, or visual references in FigJam or Pinterest
• During exploration: Use Khroma to generate personalized palette options based on your trained preferences
• After Khroma: Apply selected palettes in Figma or Sketch, refine colors for specific use cases, document in style guides

Common tool pairings:

• Khroma + Figma for generating palettes in Khroma, then building color styles and variables in Figma for your design system
• Khroma + Coolors for using Khroma to find base palettes, then Coolors to generate shades, tints, and extended color systems
• Khroma + Contrast for double-checking accessibility ratings with dedicated contrast checkers before final implementation
• Khroma + Pinterest for combining AI-generated palettes with visual inspiration to validate color directions

Common Problems (and How to Fix Them)

Palettes Don’t Match the Style I Actually Want

Khroma learns from your training session, so if results feel off, you might have picked colors too quickly or inconsistently. Retrain by clicking the menu icon and selecting “Train new network.” This time, focus on colors that match your current project aesthetic rather than colors you generally like. You can retrain as often as needed for different projects.

Too Many Similar Palettes in Results

If Khroma generates palettes that feel repetitive, your training data might have been too narrow. The AI amplifies patterns in your selections. Retrain with more variety in hue, saturation, and lightness. Pick some unexpected colors outside your comfort zone so the model has more range to work with.

I Need More Than Four Colors

Khroma shows 2-color, 3-color, and 4-color combinations, but design systems often need 8-12 colors. Use Khroma to find your core palette (primary, accent, neutral), then expand it manually in Figma or use a tool like Coolors to generate shades and tints. Khroma excels at finding harmonious base colors, not building complete color systems.

Accessibility Ratings Are Borderline

WCAG AA requires 4.5:1 contrast for normal text and 3:1 for large text. AAA is stricter (7:1 and 4.5:1). If Khroma palettes don’t quite meet standards, copy hex codes into a dedicated contrast checker like WebAIM’s tool or Figma’s contrast checker plugins. Adjust lightness values slightly darker or lighter to hit required ratios while preserving the palette’s character.

Can’t Export Palettes to Design Tools Directly

Khroma doesn’t export .ase files or integrate with Adobe or Figma. Copy hex codes manually and paste them into your design tool’s color styles. For faster workflow, use a browser extension like “Palette Creator” to capture colors from Khroma and export to various formats, or keep a Figma file as your color library and paste hex codes there.