Colours that sit next to each other on the colour wheel — a harmonious, low-contrast pairing.
Hues within roughly 30–60° of each other on the hue wheel.
Analogous colours can still contrast in lightness or saturation even though their hues are close.
Blue, teal and green form an analogous group.
Analogous pairings are the usual choice when a 'subtle' rather than 'bold' pairing is wanted.
Analogous colours are defined by a small hue angle between them. Colourwise generates the pair 30° either side of the base on the HSL wheel. That wheel is not perceptually even, so the same 30° is a larger visual step in some directions than in others, and the rule gives tighter or looser schemes depending on where it starts.
| Colour | HSL hue | CIELAB L* | ΔE00 from Teal |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30° back #008040 | 150° | 46.7 | 20.5 |
| Teal #008080 | 180° | 48.3 | 0.0 |
| 30° on #004080 | 210° | 27.4 | 31.9 |
Both neighbours are 30° from Teal on the wheel, yet one is 20.5 ΔE00 away and the other 31.9. Equal steps of HSL hue are not equal visual steps: the green neighbour keeps almost all of Teal's lightness (L* 46.7 against 48.3) while the blue one drops to L* 27.4. An analogous scheme usually needs its lightness evened out by eye afterwards.
How this was calculated: Neighbours are the catalogue colour with 30° subtracted from and added to its HSL hue; differences are CIEDE2000 in CIELAB under D65.
Adjacent categories in a chart, or neighbouring lines on a transport map, are given analogous colours.
Colours close in hue are the first to become indistinguishable for readers with a colour-vision deficiency, and in small marks for everyone. Categories that must be told apart need hues far apart on the wheel or a clear lightness difference.
A room is decorated in three analogous colours at the same depth.
With nothing to anchor it the scheme reads as one indeterminate colour. Varying the lightness, or adding one neutral, restores the structure.