Hue
The attribute of a color that places it on the spectrum — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and everything between.
What it means
Hue is the most basic way to name a color. When you say "that button is blue" or "the background is green," you're describing its hue. In color models like HSL and OKLCH, hue is expressed as a degree on a 360° wheel: 0° is red, 120° is green, 240° is blue, and wrapping back to red at 360°.
Hue says nothing about how light, dark, vivid, or muted a color is — those are separate properties (lightness, saturation, chroma). Two colors can share the same hue but look completely different because one is a pale tint and the other a deep shade.
Why it matters in palette design
Hue is the starting point for every palette decision. Harmony rules like complementary, analogous, and triadic are defined by hue relationships on the color wheel. When PerfectPalette evaluates harmony, it measures the angular distance between hues to determine whether your palette follows a coherent pattern or drifts aimlessly.
Common confusion
Hue vs. color: "hue" refers only to the spectral position (red, blue, green…), while "color" encompasses hue plus saturation, lightness, and opacity. Crimson and pink share a red hue but are clearly different colors.
Example
A SaaS dashboard uses blue (hue ≈ 220°) as its primary. The sidebar, buttons, links, and focus rings all share that hue but vary in lightness and chroma — creating a cohesive single-hue system.
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Apply this to your palette
Open PerfectPalette and put these concepts into practice with your own colors.