The seed fixes your color. The variant decides how the system built around it feels — its character — without changing the seed.
Variant
A variant is a strategy for deriving the palette. The same seed under a different variant produces a different but still-coherent system, so you pick a character, not just a hue.
The variants are grouped by how far they move from the seed:
- Standard — source-faithful schemes that stay close to your seed.
- CMF — Color, Material, and Finish. Tonex's default, built on the latest Material color spec. The only variant that keeps your seed's own lightness, gives surfaces real color, and takes a second source.
- Tonal Spot — the default Material You scheme.
- Fidelity — stays close to your seed color. What you pick is roughly what you get.
- Content — similar to Fidelity but more conservative. Good for image-heavy interfaces.
- Expressive — high-chroma schemes that push away from the seed for more color.
- Vibrant — pushes chroma to the maximum for a bold, energetic palette.
- Expressive — uses contrasting hues across roles for a dynamic, unexpected feel.
- Fruit Salad — rotates hues across palette roles for a playful, multicolor result.
- Rainbow — similar to Fruit Salad but with a wider hue spread.
- Subdued — restrained, low-chroma schemes.
- Neutral — desaturated. Minimal chroma, close to grayscale.
- Monochrome — single hue, zero chroma variation. Ultra-minimal.
Switching variants keeps your seed and rebuilds everything else.
CMF and a second source
The CMF variant accepts a second source color in addition to the seed. The second color drives the tertiary family, so you can steer those parts of the system with a color of your choice rather than letting them derive from the seed alone. Without a second source, CMF behaves like a seed-only scheme.
Two things set CMF apart from the other variants. The primary color keeps your seed's tone — a light seed gives a light primary, a dark seed a dark one — where other variants pull primary to a fixed lightness instead. And it gives surfaces real color rather than near-neutral grey, kept accessible by dynamic contrast.
Because tertiary comes from the second source under CMF, the tertiary palette override is turned off while CMF is active.