14 Figma Color Plugins to Boost Your Designs

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Colors play a pivotal role in design. Whether crafting an intuitive user interface or designing eye-catching illustrations, choosing and managing colors effectively is critical to creating impactful designs. 

Thankfully, Figma color plugins have become designers’ game-changers, simplifying complex workflows and enhancing creativity.

From seamless color pickers to advanced palettes, these tools are among the top Figma plugins designers should know about. 

They help you experiment with hues and ensure consistency and precision in your projects. 

This blog explores the Figma color plugins that can transform your design process and boost productivity. 

14 color plugins for Figma

Designing with precision requires reliable tools, and Figma has an extensive range of plugins that simplify color management. 

From generating gradients to creating palettes, these color plugins for Figma ensure your designs remain vibrant and cohesive. 

Here’s a comprehensive guide to the Figma color plugins to help you achieve design excellence.

1. Contrast: Most popular Figma color picker

Contrast is a powerful Figma color plugin that checks the contrast ratio between text and background colors. 

This Figma color picker is invaluable for designers aiming to improve accessibility by ensuring their designs meet WCAG 2.0 guidelines. 

It helps you create color schemes that are readable for all users, including those with visual impairments.

The features include real-time contrast checking for text and backgrounds, ensuring that accessibility standards are met. It displays the contrast ratio along with the compliance level, whether it’s AA or AAA. 

Additionally, it provides warnings for color combinations that fail to meet these accessibility standards, promoting better visual clarity and inclusivity.

Pros of Contrast Plugin:

• Promotes inclusive designs.
• Works seamlessly within Figma.
• Improves readability for diverse audiences.

Cons of Contrast Plugin:

• No suggestions for better color combinations.
• Limited customization in analysis.
• Requires manual testing for non-text elements.

Install Contrast color Plugin from here.

2. Image Palette: Color extracting tool

Image Palette is a fantastic Figma color tool that generates color palettes directly from images. 

It’s perfect for designers who want to extract a harmonious color scheme from photos or illustrations and apply them to their designs. 

This Figma color plugin streamlines the creation of color palettes that align with real-world images.

The tool can extract both dominant and complementary colors from an image, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of its color dynamics. 

It generates multiple palettes from a single image, providing a variety of color combinations for different design needs. 

Additionally, it supports high-resolution images, which enhances accuracy in color extraction and palette generation, ensuring users receive the best results possible.

Pros of Image Palette:

• Quick and effortless palette creation.
• Ideal for building mood boards.
• Offers a natural color harmony.

Cons of Image palette:

• Performance depends on image quality.
• Cannot edit extracted colors directly.
• Limited palette export options.

Install Image Palette plugin from here.

3. Mesh Gradient: Plugin for color transitions

Mesh Gradient is an advanced Figma color plugin that helps you easily create complex gradients. 

It’s a must-have for designers who need more control over their gradient designs. Its multi-color mesh points offer precise control over color transitions. 

This plugin lets you add more depth and creativity to your Figma color tools.

The tool enables users to create stunning mesh-based gradient designs with ease. It offers full customization of nodes and colors, allowing for a high degree of creative expression. 

Additionally, it supports smooth transitions, enhancing the artistic effects and overall visual appeal of the designs.

Pros of Mesh Gradient:

• Perfect for trendy, aesthetic designs.
• Intuitive and beginner-friendly.
• Enhances creativity with mesh options.

Cons of Mesh Gradient:

• Requires manual adjustments for complex patterns.
• Less effective for subtle gradients.
• No preset gradient templates.

Install Mesh Gradient plugin from here.

4. Coolors: Most superfast color plugin in Figma

Coolors is a popular Figma color plugin that generates beautiful color palettes in seconds. Locking in a base color creates perfectly coordinated palettes, allowing designers to develop color schemes with minimal effort. 

This tool is excellent for those looking for a quick, reliable way to create color schemes using Figma color tools.

The tool offers a range of user-friendly features designed to enhance your color selection process. With just one click, you can generate harmonious palettes that suit your needs. 

Additionally, it allows you to export your palettes in multiple formats for easy use across different platforms. 

To ensure inclusivity, the tool also includes accessibility-friendly options, such as color blindness filters, making it easier for everyone to create and utilize beautiful color combinations.

Pros of Coolors:

• Easy to use with robust controls.
• Great for experimenting with new schemes.
• Integrated with various design platforms.

Cons of Coolors:

• Advanced features require a paid plan.
• Occasional lag when generating large palettes.
• Limited offline functionality.

Install Coolors plugin from here.

5. Color Overlay: Color picker for recoloring

Color Overlay is a Figma color plugin that lets you apply semi-transparent color overlays to your design elements. 

This Figma color tool is great for adjusting the mood or tone of an image, text, or background without altering the original design elements. 

It allows you to experiment with color shifts while keeping the underlying content intact.

The features of this tool allow users to apply solid or gradient overlays to various elements, enhancing their visual appeal. Users can easily adjust the overlay’s opacity and blend modes to achieve the desired effect. 

Additionally, the tool supports multiple overlays on a single layer, providing greater flexibility and creativity in design.

Pros of Color Overlay:

• Quick way to test color compatibility.
• Lightweight and simple.
• Works well for both images and vector elements.

Cons of Color Overlay:

• Limited to overlay effects.
• Cannot save custom overlay presets.
• Requires manual tweaking for precise results.

Install Color Overlay plugin from here.

6. Webgradients: Functional color plugin in Figma

Webgradients provides a collection of pre-designed, high-quality gradients that can be applied directly in Figma. 

This Figma color plugin is perfect for designers who want quick access to modern gradients without creating them manually. 

Whether you’re designing for web or mobile, it saves time and ensures your designs stay on trend.

This Figma color tool offers a vast library of ready-to-use gradients, making it an invaluable resource for designers. It is compatible with both web and mobile designs, ensuring versatility across different platforms. 

Additionally, it includes CSS code for each gradient, simplifying the implementation process and allowing for seamless integration into various projects.

Pros of Webgradients:

• Saves time on creating gradients from scratch.
• Simple to implement in designs.
• Perfect for beginners and professionals alike.

Cons of Webgradients:

• Customization options are limited.
• No gradient creation feature.
• Some gradients may feel overused.

Install Webgradients plugin from here.

7. Color Shades: For generating multiple shades

Color Shades is an excellent Figma color plugin for generating a selected color’s tints, tones, and shades. 

This Figma color tool is perfect for designers who need consistent shades across their designs, ensuring uniform color variations.

The tool has impressive features that allow it to auto-generate both lighter and darker versions of a selected color. 

Users can easily adjust the shade intensity levels to achieve the desired effect. Additionally, it can work on multiple colors simultaneously, making it a versatile option for color manipulation.

Pros of Color Shades:

• Streamlines branding projects.
• Excellent for creating hierarchy in designs.
• Ensures consistency across designs.

Cons of Color Shades:

• No gradient options.
• Requires manual saving of generated shades.
• Limited export functionality.

Install Color Shades plugin from here.

8. Invert Color: Tool for inverting colors

Invert Color is a useful Figma color tool that inverts the color of selected elements. This can be particularly helpful for testing designs with inverted colors to ensure readability, accessibility, and overall contrast. 

It’s a simple but effective way to test design choices quickly. The tool offers an efficient one-click color inversion feature that seamlessly works on text, shapes, and layers. 

Additionally, it supports batch inversion, allowing users to invert the colors of multiple elements simultaneously, streamlining the design process and enhancing productivity.

Pros of Invert Colors:

• Useful for accessibility testing.
• Fast and easy to use.
• Great for experimenting with new styles.

Cons of Invert Colors:

• Lacks advanced color editing options.
• Limited to simple inversions.
• Not suitable for complex color palettes.

Install Invert Colors plugin from here.

9. Color Kit: For creating color scales

Color Kit is a robust Figma color plugin that allows designers to create custom color scales, extract colors from designs, and generate complementary color palettes. 

It’s great for those who need more control over color combinations and want to work with professional-grade color schemes.

This Figma color tool offers several useful features for design projects, including the ability to effortlessly generate and save color palettes. 

A built-in contrast checker ensures that your designs maintain visual accessibility, which is crucial for effective communication. 

Additionally, the tool allows for the synchronization of palettes across multiple projects, making it easier to maintain consistency and save time during the design process.

Pros of Color Kit:

• All-in-one tool for professionals.
• Encourages collaboration with shared palettes.
• Helps maintain brand consistency.

Cons of Color Kit:

• Requires some learning for advanced features.
• Heavier than standalone plugins.
• Occasional bugs when handling large files.

Install Color Kit plugin from here.

10. Color Compass: For navigating color spectrum

Color Compass is a Figma color plugin that helps you find harmonious color combinations that work well together. 

It’s perfect for ensuring your design palette is balanced and appealing.

This Figma color tool offers several features designed to enhance color selection, including suggestions for triadic, analogous, and complementary color schemes. 

Users can benefit from a real-time color wheel, which allows for an interactive experience while exploring different colors. 

Additionally, this Figma color tool provides customizable suggestions tailored to the user’s input, ensuring a more personalized approach to color selection.

Pros of Color Compass:

• Great for beginners learning color theory.
• Encourages creativity in palettes.
• Simple to use.

Cons of Color Compass:

• May feel redundant for experienced designers.
• Focused on theory rather than practical application.
• Limited palette export options.

Install Color Compass plugin from here.

11. UI Color Palette: Create accessible palettes in seconds

UI Color Palette is a Figma color plugin designed explicitly for UI designers. It allows you to generate on-brand, visually appealing color palettes tailored for web and mobile interfaces, perfect for designing consistent, modern UIs.

This design tool features a variety of popular UI color schemes, allowing for a visually appealing aesthetic. 

Additionally, it offers customizable palettes that can be tailored to specific branding needs. One of its standout capabilities is the support for live previews of designs, enabling users to see changes in real time and make adjustments as necessary.

Pros of UI Color Palette:

• Saves time on UI projects.
• Perfect for consistent themes.
• Beginner-friendly.

Cons of UI Color Palette:

• Limited palette variety.
• No gradient support.
• Not ideal for non-UI projects.

Install UI Color Palette plugin from here.

12. Tints and Shades: For creating color variations

Tints and Shades is a simple Figma color plugin that automatically generates tints and shades of any selected color. 

This color plugin in Figma is perfect for designers looking to quickly create subtle variations of their primary color.

This tool’s features include the ability to auto-generate multiple tints and shades, providing users with a wide variety of color options. 

Additionally, it offers adjustable levels for precise output, allowing for fine-tuning to achieve the desired look. Users can also take advantage of quick previews for selected colors, making the process more efficient and visually informative.

Pros of Tints and Shades:

• Perfect for branding and theming.
• Speeds up workflow significantly.
• Generates color variations quickly.

Cons of Tints and Shades:

• Limited export options.
• No direct integration with gradients.
• Best for flat designs only.

Install Tints and Shades plugin from here.

13. Appearance: To work with external library color styles

Appearance is a Figma color plugin that allows you to preview color variations on your design elements in real time. It’s perfect for testing different color schemes and seeing how they affect your design’s overall appearance.

This tool offers a range of features that enhance creativity and personalization. It seamlessly blends colors with various textures, allowing for a more dynamic visual experience. 

Additionally, it supports layer effects, enabling users to customize their designs more. Whether working with shapes or text elements, this tool provides the flexibility needed to bring ideas to life.

Pros of Appearance:

• Highly creative tool.
• Allows for unique design experiments.
• Supports advanced customization.

Cons of Apperance:

• Complex interface for beginners.
• Time-consuming for simple designs.
• Limited presets.

Install Apperance color plugin from here.

14. Colorwell: For mixing color palettes

Colorwell is a powerful Figma color plugin that offers an extensive color wheel, gradients, and multiple color models. 

Perfect for designers looking for an all-in-one color management solution, it lets you quickly experiment and fine-tune your color choices.

The tool’s features include the ability to generate and save extensive color palettes, providing users with a wide array of options for their design projects. 

Additionally, it offers adjustable sliders for hue, saturation, and brightness, allowing for precise control over the color selection process. 

Furthermore, this tool seamlessly integrates with other Figma tools, enhancing the overall user experience and enabling more efficient design workflows.

Pros of Colorwell:

• Packed with advanced features.
• Supports precise color adjustments.
• Great for large projects.

Cons of Colorwell:

• The steeper learning curve for beginners.
• It can be overwhelming for simple tasks.
• Requires a stable system for optimal performance.

Install Colorwell plugin from here.

Combining Figma color plugins for optimal results

When designing in Figma, combining multiple color plugins can elevate your workflow and enable you to create visually stunning and consistent designs.

Here’s how you can combine Figma color plugins to achieve optimal results:

Leverage different plugin strengths

Each color plugin in Figma has its unique strengths, so using them in tandem can help you create diverse color schemes. For example:

• Use Coolors to generate a cohesive color palette, then refine it with Color Shades to add depth and variations to your chosen colors.
• Combine Mesh Gradient for dynamic gradient effects with Image Palette to pull complementary colors directly from an image or photo.

Create complex color schemes

Many color plugins in Figma offer specialized tools for creating specific types of color schemes (e.g., monochromatic, triadic, analogous). 

Use a Figma color plugin like Color Kit to create a primary color palette, and then pair it with Color Compass to introduce accent colors based on harmonious color theory principles. By using multiple plugins, you can enhance your design’s complexity without losing cohesion.

Accessibility and contrast checks

Pair Figma color plugins that focus on contrast and accessibility to ensure your color choices meet accessibility standards. 

For example, use Contrast to check whether your colors pass WCAG guidelines for legibility and combine it with Color Overlay for quick adjustments if needed.

Streamlining workflow

Using multiple Figma color plugins can speed up the design process, instead of manually adjusting colors or creating palettes from scratch. 

Plugins like Webgradients, Tints, and Shades allow you to experiment with gradients and fine-tune the intensity of your colors, while Invert Color can quickly reverse hues to give you alternative color options without having to rework your entire palette.

Integrating Figma color plugins with design systems

Design systems provide a unified framework for creating consistent, scalable designs. 

Integrating Figma color plugins into your design system improves efficiency and ensures that your color choices remain aligned with your brand’s guidelines. 

Here’s how to seamlessly integrate color plugins into your design system:

Establish color palettes using plugins

Use color plugins in figma like Colorwell, Color Kit, or Addding to create a base color palette for your design system. These plugins help define primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, along with different shades and tints. 

Once your palette is set, you can save and reuse it across all your Figma projects, ensuring consistency in every design.

Maintain brand consistency

Design systems are all about consistency, and best Figma color plugins help reinforce this by allowing you to store and access your brand’s specific color palette. 

Plugins such as UI Color Palette can generate a set of pre-configured colors that match your brand’s guidelines, while Color Compass helps select complementary accent colors that align with your main palette.

Color variables for scalable design

Many color plugins in Figma let you set up color variables within Figma, making it easier to manage and update your design system. 

When you use Color Kit or Image Palette, you can save color variables that update across all frames and components, ensuring that a change in one place automatically reflects throughout your designs.

Ensure color accessibility across components

When creating accessible design systems, it’s crucial to check that your colors meet WCAG standards for contrast. Plugins like Contrast are essential for this step. 

Integrating these Figma color tools into your design system allows you to continuously validate that your color choices remain accessible across different components, from buttons to text.

Streamline design handoff

Figma color plugins also play a key role during the design handoff process. These plugins allow you to export color palettes or generate code snippets (e.g., Coolors). 

You can easily share your color specifications with developers and other team members, reducing the likelihood of miscommunication and errors in implementation.

Automate color adjustments

As design systems evolve, colors may need adjustments or iterations. 

Figma color Plugins like Tints, Shades, and Color Overlay enable quick tweaks to your color palette, making it easier to maintain an up-to-date and versatile system without manually adjusting each component.

Conclusion

Figma’s color plugins are essential design tools that can transform how you create and manage colors in your design projects. 

These Figma color plugins cater to every aspect of a designer’s workflow, from ensuring accessibility with Contrast to generating gradients with Mesh Gradient. 

Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, leveraging these Figma color tools can significantly enhance your creativity and efficiency.

At Octet Design Studio, we understand the importance of having the right tools to streamline your design process. That’s why we continually explore the latest design tools and trends through our design journal, helping UI UX designers stay informed and inspired.

Frequently asked questions

How do you create shades of color in Figma?

Creating shades of color in Figma is straightforward. You can do it manually or using Figma color tools and plugins. 

To create shades manually:

• Select your base color in the Figma color picker.
• Adjust the brightness or saturation to generate lighter or darker shades.
• You can also use color plugins for Figma, like Tints and Shades or Color Kit, to automatically generate different tints and shades from a single color, ensuring consistency throughout your design.

What is the color model in Figma?

Figma uses the RGB color model, which is ideal for digital design. RGB stands for Red, Green, and Blue, combining these three colors at different intensities to create a wide range of colors. 

When using Figma color tools, you can adjust the color using the RGB values or switch to HSL or Hex color modes for more control. This flexibility allows you to select and fine-tune colors for your designs in various ways.

What color mode does Figma use?

Figma primarily operates in RGB color mode, which is based on the red, green, and blue light combination and is most suitable for digital designs like websites and mobile apps. 

When working with Figma color tools, you can use the Figma color picker to define and manipulate RGB colors. 

While Figma doesn’t natively support CMYK (used for printing), you can convert your RGB colors to CMYK using external tools for print-based projects.