Seasonal Color Analysis: All 12 Palettes
Four families, each split into three, giving twelve palettes narrow enough to act on. Every swatch below is a real hex code that opens its full RGB, HSL, CMYK and OKLCH breakdown with contrast ratios — useful whether you are picking clothes or building a brand palette.
Spring
Warm and clear. Golden undertones, light to medium depth, colour that stays fresh rather than heavy.
Light Spring
Light, warm and delicate — the palest of the warm seasons
warm · light · medium · low contrast
True Spring
Unambiguously warm and clear — golden, fresh and saturated
warm · medium · bright · medium contrast
Bright Spring
Warm-leaning but defined by clarity and high contrast
warm · medium · bright · high contrast
Summer
Cool and soft. Rose or ash undertones, low to medium contrast, colour held back from full saturation.
Autumn
Warm and rich. Golden or bronze undertones, earth-based colour, depth without coldness.
Soft Autumn
Muted and gently warm — earth tones without the intensity
neutral · medium · soft · low contrast
True Autumn
Richly warm and earthy — the most golden of the seasons
warm · medium · medium · medium contrast
Deep Autumn
Warm but sorted by depth — dark, rich and saturated
warm · deep · medium · high contrast
Winter
Cool and sharp. Blue undertones, high contrast, saturated jewel tones and true neutrals.
Deep Winter
Dark and cool — high contrast with a blue base
cool · deep · medium · high contrast
True Winter
Sharply cool and saturated — icy and jewel-toned
cool · medium · bright · high contrast
Bright Winter
Defined by clarity and contrast rather than by temperature
neutral · medium · bright · high contrast
The four axes every season is built from
A season is not a mood or a personality — it is a position on four measurable axes. Settle them in this order and the shortlist narrows fast.
Step 1
Temperature
Whether the colouring sits on a warm (golden, peach, bronze) or cool (rose, ash, blue) base. Measured from the hue angle of the skin in LCH, moderated by hair and eyes.
Step 2
Depth
How light or dark the colouring is overall — the mean lightness across skin, hair and eyes. It decides how dark a colour can go before it takes over the face.
Step 3
Chroma
How saturated the colouring is. Soft colouring is overwhelmed by pure, clear colour; bright colouring makes muted colour look dirty.
Step 4
Contrast
The lightness gap between the lightest and darkest feature. High contrast supports black-and-white pairings; low contrast needs the outfit to stay in a narrow band.
Common questions
What is seasonal colour analysis?
Seasonal colour analysis sorts human colouring into palettes using four axes: temperature, depth, chroma and contrast. The original system had four seasons; the modern 12-season version splits each into three so the palettes are narrow enough to be useful. Each season is a region of colour space, defined by a hue range, a lightness range and a chroma range.
How do I find my season?
Compare palettes against your face in indirect daylight, with no makeup and hair covered. Work down the axes in order: settle temperature first, then depth, then chroma. Most people can rule out two of the four families quickly, then decide between two or three adjacent seasons. The seasons listed as "often confused with" on each page are the ones worth comparing directly.
How accurate is colour analysis?
It is a design framework, not a measurement of a person. The axes are real and measurable in a colour space, but where the boundaries fall between seasons is a convention, so anyone near a boundary genuinely sits between two palettes. Treat a season as a shortlist that narrows thousands of colours to a few dozen, and trust what you see in daylight over the label.
Can I use these palettes for design work rather than clothing?
Yes. Each palette is a coherent set constrained to one hue, lightness and chroma range, which is exactly what a brand or UI palette needs. The neutrals on each page give the base, and every swatch links to its full breakdown with contrast ratios so you can check accessibility before shipping.
Why are there 12 seasons instead of 4?
Four palettes are too wide to be actionable — a single "summer" palette has to cover both very light and very muted colouring. Splitting each season into three along its strongest secondary axis produces palettes whose members actually belong together. The three variants of each family are named for that secondary axis: light, true and bright or deep, soft and so on.