Art & Design
87 tools
Prompts for drawing, painting, photography, craft and design projects, plus real colour tooling — palettes, gradients and WCAG contrast. A spark for a daily practice, a classroom art lesson, or breaking through creative block. Broad artistic mediums, moods and techniques, not any single artist's protected style.
Showing 87 of 87 tools.
- Colour Palette GeneratorGenerate a real colour palette — six harmony types, with hex, RGB and HSL values and the contrast each colour gives with text.
- Colour Contrast Pair GeneratorGenerate text and background colours that reach a WCAG contrast target, and check any pair you already have.
- OKLCH Colour Palette GeneratorBuild a palette in OKLCH, where every colour at the same lightness genuinely looks equally bright — with hex, CSS and gamut warnings.
- Geometric Pattern GeneratorBuilds a tiled pattern under a symmetry rule and hands you the SVG — mirrored, half-turn or quarter-turn.
- Type Scale GeneratorA typographic size ramp from one base size and a ratio, with every step derived from the base rather than the step before it.
- Random Gradient GeneratorGenerate a CSS gradient that moves through hue rather than through grey, with every stop's colour and position shown.
- Colour Shade Scale GeneratorGenerate a design-system tint and shade ramp — 50 through 950 — where every step sits at the same lightness in every hue.
- Layout Grid GeneratorWorks out column widths that meet your margins exactly, then cuts the page into blocks with no gaps or overlaps.
- Shot List GeneratorBuilds a shot list with guaranteed coverage — a wide, a medium and a close of every setup, plus extras.
- Spacing Scale GeneratorA spacing ramp snapped to a whole grid increment, so no gap ever lands on half a pixel.
- Chart Colour Palette GeneratorGenerate distinguishable colours for chart series — evenly spread, matched in lightness so no series looks more important than another.
- Composition Layout GeneratorArranges shapes on a frame under constraints you set — thirds, symmetry, overlap — as a layout to draw from.
- Complementary Colour GeneratorFind the colour directly opposite any hue on the wheel, with hex, RGB and HSL values and the contrast each gives with text.
- Triadic Palette GeneratorGenerate three hues evenly spaced 120° apart — vivid and balanced, and the scheme most often used with one colour leading.
- Analogous Palette GeneratorGenerate three neighbouring hues 30° apart — the restful scheme that blends rather than competes.
- Gravel and Topsoil CalculatorTurns an area and a depth into cubic metres, tonnes and bags of gravel, topsoil, bark, sand, sub-base, concrete or compost.
- Staircase CalculatorDivides a floor-to-floor height into a whole number of identical risers, works out the going and the pitch, and shows the flights either side of it.
- Gift Box Template GeneratorDraws a printable box or envelope template at exactly the size you need, with fold lines, a glue flap and tuck flaps that clear one another.
- Label Sheet GeneratorLays out labels, gift tags, folded place cards or cards with a bleed at whatever size you need, as many as the page holds and all evenly spaced.
- Wallpaper Quantity CalculatorWorks out how many rolls a room needs from the drops rather than the area, allowing for the pattern repeat that makes people come back for one more roll.
- Fence Panel and Post CalculatorCounts panels, posts, gravel boards and bags of postcrete for a run of fence, including the closing post everybody forgets.
- Decking Board CalculatorCounts decking boards, the gaps between them, the joists underneath and the screws, with the last board's rip width worked out.
- Picture Hanging CalculatorWorks out exactly where each nail goes for one picture, a row or a gallery grid, allowing for the cord drop and centring the whole thing on the wall.
- Timelapse Interval CalculatorWorks out the interval, the shooting time or the finished clip length from the other two, with the card and battery you will need.
- Drawing Prompt GeneratorA subject to sketch when the blank page is the hardest part of starting.
- Evenly Across the Row CalculatorWorks out where to put increases, decreases or markers spread evenly along a row, and writes the row the way a pattern reads it.
- Curtain Fabric CalculatorWorks out how many metres a pair of curtains takes, from the fullness the heading needs, the hems, and the pattern repeat on the cut.
- Rainwater Harvesting CalculatorWorks out how much water a roof yields in a year, then runs a butt or tank through the months to show what you would actually use and what overflows.
- Model Scale CalculatorConverts between real and model measurements at any scale, and works out what ratio a figure height like 28mm actually means.
- Shelf Bracket Spacing CalculatorWorks out how many brackets a shelf needs and exactly where they go, allowing for the material, the load and the studs behind the wall.
- Fall and Gradient CalculatorConverts between a ratio, a percentage, millimetres per metre and a total fall, and marks the drop at each metre along the run.
- Pond Liner CalculatorSizes a pond liner from the hole — down one side, across, up the other and over both edges — and works out the real volume for the pump.
- Colour Format ConverterConverts a colour between hex, RGB and HSL, with the contrast against black and white worked out too.
- Aspect Ratio CalculatorReduces a width and height to the ratio people recognise, and works out the matching dimension at any size.
- Terrain Heightmap GeneratorSmoothly interpolated value-noise height fields with a movable water line, and continuity checked rather than assumed.
- Colour Vision SimulatorShows how a palette appears to someone with red, green or blue colour vision deficiency, and names the pairs that become indistinguishable.
- Paint Coverage CalculatorWorks out how much paint a room needs, subtracting doors and windows and rounding tins up so the job is genuinely covered.
- Depth of Field CalculatorWhere the sharp zone starts and ends, with the hyperfocal distance and the identity that makes it special.
- Identicon GeneratorTurns a name or an email address into a symmetrical avatar that is the same every time, and always dark enough to see.
- Tile Layout CalculatorHow many tiles a floor needs, with the cut pieces shown and a warning when the edge strip is too narrow to look right.
- Equivalent Exposure CalculatorEvery combination of aperture, shutter and ISO that gives the same brightness, matched on exposure value rather than guessed.
- Field of View CalculatorHow wide a lens sees on a given sensor, with the crop factor and the full-frame equivalent focal length.
- L-System GeneratorWrite your own rewriting rules — or take one of five classics — and watch the string grow and turn into a path, with the size worked out before anything is drawn.
- Space-Filling Curve GeneratorHilbert and Z-order curves drawn across a grid, with every cell confirmed visited exactly once.
- Print Resolution CalculatorHow large an image prints at a given resolution, in inches and centimetres, with an honest verdict on quality.
- Projector Throw CalculatorThe image size a projector gives from a given distance, with the area that decides how bright it looks.
- Koch Curve GeneratorThe Koch curve and snowflake at any depth, with the exact segment count, length factor and fractional dimension.
- Sierpinski Fractal GeneratorThe Sierpinski triangle and carpet computed by a digit rule rather than recursion, with the exact cell count at every depth.
- Daily Drawing Challenge GeneratorA single-word theme to interpret however you like — built for a running daily practice, not a one-off prompt.
- Photography Prompt GeneratorA subject to go and photograph, for breaking a creative rut with just a phone camera.
- Lighting Beam Pool CalculatorHow wide a pool a light throws at a given distance, and how much brightness it loses spreading that far.
- Optimal Line Break CalculatorBreaks a paragraph into the tidiest possible set of lines, and shows how much worse simply filling each line would be.
- Circle Packing GeneratorNon-overlapping circles of varying size, with every pair measured and the coverage compared against the theoretical limit.
- Aspect Ratio Fit CalculatorThe exact size an image becomes when contained inside a frame or made to cover it, with the letterbox bars and the cropped-off amounts measured.
- Contact Sheet Layout GeneratorWorks out the grid and the exact cell size for a sheet of thumbnails, with margins and gutters taken off first so the numbers actually fit the page.
- Crop Ratio CalculatorThe largest crop of a chosen ratio that an image can give, in exact whole multiples, with the offset to centre it and the area you keep.
- Tessellation GeneratorTiles a grid with squares, offset bricks or dominoes, checking cell by cell that nothing is uncovered and nothing is covered twice.
- Colour Difference CalculatorMeasures how different two colours look using a perceptual metric, and shows how badly plain RGB distance disagrees.
- Dither Pattern GeneratorTurns a grey level into a two-colour pattern whose average really is that grey, with the filled cells counted back.
- Spirograph GeneratorDraws the curve a wheel traces inside a ring, with the number of revolutions before it closes derived from the greatest common divisor.
- Truchet Tile GeneratorFills a grid with randomly rotated arc tiles that always join, because the constraint lives in the tile rather than the arrangement.
- Knitting Gauge CalculatorConverts your gauge into the stitches and rows a size needs, and resizes a pattern written for a different tension.
- Craft Project GeneratorA physical, hands-on project to make, from a woven bracelet to a clay pinch pot.
- Masonry Layout GeneratorPacks tiles of varying heights into balanced columns and shows the result, with the uneven bottom edge that greedy packing genuinely leaves.
- Booklet Imposition GeneratorThe print order for a saddle-stitched booklet, sheet by sheet, checked by folding the pages back into reading order.
- Character Drawing Prompt GeneratorA character brief to design, from a retired adventurer to someone in an invented uniform.
- Animal Drawing Prompt GeneratorA specific animal and pose to sketch, for practising anatomy and movement.
- Landscape Drawing Prompt GeneratorA scene and mood to sketch or paint, from a frozen lake to a rain-soaked city street.
- Creative Constraint GeneratorA rule to work within — three colours only, non-dominant hand, a five-minute timer — for any medium.
- Design Style Prompt GeneratorA graphic-design brief to interpret, from a poster for a fictional event to an icon set.
- Tattoo Concept Prompt GeneratorA style and subject direction for tattoo-flash sketching — design inspiration, not aftercare advice.
- Logo Concept Prompt GeneratorA specific logo-design constraint, from a single continuous line to a hidden-image concept.
- Photo Composition Challenge GeneratorA specific framing technique to practise, like the rule of thirds or a strong silhouette.
- Typography Challenge GeneratorA lettering exercise, from hand-lettering a quote to designing a full geometric alphabet.
- Still Life Prompt GeneratorAn object arrangement to draw or paint from observation.
- Creature Design Prompt GeneratorAn original creature to invent and design, distinct from drawing a real, existing animal.
- Gesture Drawing Prompt GeneratorA quick, timed figure pose for gesture practice, distinct from a single held pose reference.
- Pose Prompt GeneratorA single held pose to draw from reference or imagination, distinct from a timed gesture sequence.
- Poster Brief GeneratorA layout-and-message design brief, distinct from a pure visual-style prompt.
- Limited Colour Challenge GeneratorA colour-restriction challenge for your next piece, distinct from simply picking a palette.
- Portrait Photography Prompt GeneratorA portrait-specific photography brief, distinct from the site's general photography-prompt tool.
- Facial Expression Prompt GeneratorA specific emotion to draw on a face, for expression-study practice.
- Icon Design Challenge GeneratorA small symbolic icon to design, distinct from a full logo concept.
- Lettering Challenge GeneratorA hand-lettering practice prompt, distinct from pairing existing typefaces.
- Sculpture Idea GeneratorA random three-dimensional sculpture idea or constraint.
- Collage Prompt GeneratorA random collage-making prompt or constraint.
- Abstract Art Prompt GeneratorA random abstract art prompt built around shape, colour or feeling.
Choosing the right art & design tool
Two families live here, and they answer different questions. The **prompt tools** tell you what to make: a subject, a constraint, a brief. They draw from curated lists, so each page shows a sample before you commit to it. The **colour tools** produce actual values — hex, RGB and HSL — with a defined mathematical relationship between them. That distinction matters, because until this catalogue had colour tooling, every colour page here returned a written description of a palette rather than any colours.
- Colour Palette Generator
- You want a set of colours that work together and are not sure which relationship you need. It offers all six harmonies in one place.
- Complementary, Analogous and Triadic generators
- You already know the relationship you want. Complementary for maximum contrast, analogous for calm, triadic for three distinct but balanced colours.
- Colour Contrast Pair Generator
- The question is whether text will be readable, which a harmony cannot answer — hue relationships say nothing about luminance.
- Random Gradient Generator
- You need a background rather than a palette, and want the CSS ready to paste.
- Drawing and photography prompts
- You want something to make rather than something to make it with.
- Constraint and challenge generators
- The blank page is not the problem — you want a restriction to work against, which usually produces better work than an open brief.
Every tool in this category draws its results in your browser. How Generate Random works explains how the randomness is produced and what happens to anything you type in.