One palette, three moods

Colour words are the fastest steering wheel

Models generate from probability, and the probability of a 'premium tech' gradient sky is enormous unless the brief steers. Colour direction is the cheapest steering there is: two lines about palette change the entire output distribution — the layout can stay constant while the mood flips from fintech to editorial to playful.

Same layout, same product (a focus timer):

MOOD 1 - calm professional
"Palette: deep ink, warm paper, one measured green used
 only for the running state. Nothing louder than a ledger."

MOOD 2 - playful energy
"Palette: paper white, one saturated coral, black type.
 Colour is allowed to be loud, but only one colour at a time."

MOOD 3 - editorial luxury
"Palette: near-black, bone, one metallic accent on the
 primary action only. Generous margins, magazine scale."

The phrases that actually move output

• Job-words over colour-words: 'a green used only for the running state' beats 'mint green' — the model can now place the colour with intent instead of decorating.
• Restraint as a directive: 'nothing louder than a ledger', 'one colour at a time', 'accent reserved for the primary action' — models respond to a rule about quantity better than a rule about hue.
• Material metaphors: 'workshop grey', 'book cloth', 'newsprint' — concrete materials produce richer palettes than abstract names because they carry texture and context, not just a hex.
• Negative colour: 'no gradients, no purple, nothing neon' — the never-list prunes the model's default taste, which is the actual enemy of a directed palette.

The audit

After generation, check the page against the brief's own palette line before judging layout. If the palette line said 'one saturated accent' and the page arrived with four, the failure is constraint-enforcement, and the fix is in the never-list, not the hue names. If the page arrived monochrome when the brief promised warmth, the palette line lacked a dominant tone — name the colour that should fill the most area. Colour direction is a loop, like everything else in prompting.