Most palettes are chosen, not designed. Five nice swatches on a slide, and then every designer on the team uses them differently.

Roles, not colours

Instead of naming colours by hue, I name them by job: paper, ink, muted, line, accent. The question is never “which blue?” but “what is this doing?”

One accent, used sparingly

An accent works because it’s rare. On this site, vermilion appears on availability, links and a few details — nowhere else. That scarcity is what gives it energy.

Test in context

Colours behave differently at 12px and at 120px, on paper and on a phone. Always test the system on real layouts before calling it done.