Color · Color Schemes
Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Colors
also known as color categories
Primary colors are the base hues that cannot be made by mixing others in a given system. Secondary colors come from mixing two primaries, and tertiary colors come from mixing a primary with a neighboring secondary. Which colors count as primary depends on the system: red, yellow, blue in traditional art, or red, green, blue in light.
See it live — shadcn/ui · MUI · Ant Design
Don't confuse it with
Primaries differ by system: RYB for traditional pigment theory, RGB for light/screens, CMY for print inks. Do not assume 'primary' always means red, yellow, blue.
In the wild
In art theory, red and yellow (primaries) mix to orange (a secondary); red plus orange makes red-orange (a tertiary).