Color analysis chart: all 12 seasons on one page
This color analysis chart puts all 12 seasons on one page: every color in each palette, placed by how warm and how light it is. Up is lighter and right is warmer, so you can see each season's shape at a glance. These are computed from our palettes, and they describe colors rather than people.
In every plot, up is lighter and right is warmer. This describes our palettes, not people.
SpringWarm and light
SummerCool and light
AutumnWarm and deep
WinterCool and deep
How to read the chart
Each small plot above holds one season’s forty colors, each dot in its true color. The cross marks that palette’s average. Under each name, three words sum the palette up: how light it is, how strong its colors are, and how warm. Click any plot for that season’s full palette.
You can read a good deal from the shapes. Light seasons sit high, and deep seasons sit low. Warm seasons sit to the right. A soft season forms a tight cluster, because all its colors are muted, and a bright season spreads out. Deep Winter has an obvious gap in the middle, since its palette is mostly dark colors and icy tints. Most charts online are drawings of a concept. This one is the data, so if a palette were off, you would see it here.
What’s the color analysis wheel?
A wheel shows which seasons run into each other. Here are all twelve, in an order where each one shares a trait with the next. Go round it and you’ll move from Light Spring through warm and then bright colors, cross into Winter at the bright end, on through cool and deep, into Autumn at the deep end, through soft into Summer, and back to Spring at the light end. Two dotted lines join the pairs the circle can’t put side by side: Warm Spring with True Autumn, and Cool Winter with Cool Summer.
Neighbor relationships are a convention. Nothing in nature put these in a circle. They do tell you something useful in practice, though: if you’re unsure about your season, your likely runner-up is next door, and you’ve got good odds of sharing colors with it.
Which seasons are next to each other?
This table gives each season’s closest neighbors in our data, nearest first, along with its other names. The aliases hold in most 12-season systems, but as Agile Styling’s 16-season method shows, Cool Summer and True Summer can be different palettes elsewhere. The 16-season page untangles that.
| Season | Also called | Defined by | Neighbors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light Spring | None | light, then warm | Warm Spring, Light Summer, Bright Spring |
| Warm Spring | True Spring | warm, then bright | Light Spring, Bright Spring, True Autumn |
| Bright Spring | Clear Spring | bright, then warm | Bright Winter, Warm Spring, Light Spring |
| Light Summer | None | light, then cool | Cool Summer, Light Spring, Soft Summer |
| Cool Summer | True Summer | cool, then soft | Soft Summer, Light Summer, Cool Winter |
| Soft Summer | None | soft, then cool | Soft Autumn, Cool Summer, Light Summer |
| Soft Autumn | None | soft, then warm | Soft Summer, True Autumn, Deep Autumn |
| True Autumn | Warm Autumn | warm, then soft | Soft Autumn, Deep Autumn, Warm Spring |
| Deep Autumn | Dark Autumn | deep, then warm | Deep Winter, True Autumn, Soft Autumn |
| Deep Winter | Dark Winter | deep, then cool | Deep Autumn, Cool Winter, Bright Winter |
| Cool Winter | True Winter | cool, then bright | Deep Winter, Bright Winter, Cool Summer |
| Bright Winter | Clear Winter | bright, then cool | Bright Spring, Cool Winter, Deep Winter |
The averages are ours, and they describe palettes, not people. “Defined by” shows the dominant trait, and then what leans it.
What are the 12 seasons?
They come from dividing each of four families by the trait that dominates: three Springs, three Summers, three Autumns and three Winters. Munsell’s three dimensions of color are the usual framework, turned into warm or cool, light or deep, and soft or bright. So there are six dominant traits, two for each axis, and each appears in exactly two families: Light in Spring and Summer, Bright in Spring and Winter, Soft in Summer and Autumn, Deep in Autumn and Winter, Warm in Spring and Autumn, Cool in Summer and Winter. The seasonal guide covers where this came from, and the palettes hub has every color with its hex code.
The same data in three dimensions
A flat chart has to leave something out. This one drops strength from the plots and writes it as a word. The space below shows all three axes at once, so you can see how a soft season and a bright one that look similar in the chart above sit far apart. It’s the same forty colors per season, in the same positions, and it loads when you ask for it.
How to save and use it
Screenshot the chart at the top of the page, print the wheel, or copy the table into your notes. Everything’s free to use for yourself. To put it to work, try the season test or the quiz to find your likely spot, then check it with the scan, which reads your own face. If you’ve been told two neighboring seasons, that’s the most natural result there is: look them up on the wheel, and compare what they share.
One caution as you do. A chart makes these look like measured categories, and they aren’t. Our evidence page says what’s known and what isn’t. The chart is a good way to see the system, and it can’t prove the system is right.
Related guides and tools
Sources
The Full Color Report: $19one time
You in your best and worst colors, about 40 colors with hex codes, makeup, hair and a capsule wardrobe plan.
See a sample reportCommon questions
- What is a color analysis chart?
- A one-page view of the seasons in a color analysis system and how they relate. Some are concept diagrams. Ours plots each season's actual colors by warmth and lightness, so that you can compare palettes directly.
- How do I know where I am on the chart?
- Answer three questions: are you warm or cool, light or deep, soft or bright? The strongest of those points to a dominant trait, and the second one narrows it. Our free scan or quiz does this for you and names two seasons to test.
- Is True Spring the same as Warm Spring?
- On this chart and in most 12-season systems, yes. In some 16-season systems they're two different palettes, and comparable seasons in different systems may use different colors. Check which chart you were typed with.
- Why does my season look different on another chart?
- Each system chooses its own colors, and there's no shared standard. Some use a different number of seasons too. Compare the traits and the actual swatches rather than the names.
- Can I print this color analysis chart?
- Yes. The wheel has its own print button, which prints it alone on the page. For the twelve-plot chart, your browser's print or a screenshot works well. Colors will vary with your printer, so don't use a printout to match fabric exactly.
See which colors are yours.
See your colors on your own face, compare seasons side by side, and get your season, your undertone and a starter palette.