Find a palette by feeling.

Most palette libraries sort by colour name — green, red, blue. That works if you already know which colour you want, but the brief is rarely so polite. A wellness app is not asking for blue. It is asking for calm. A children's publisher is not asking for yellow; it is asking for cheerful, soft, but not saccharine. The mood index sorts for the second question — the one a real brief is actually trying to answer.

Each mood here is a system, not a feeling. Pastel is light tones with a soft chroma ceiling. Earth tones is warm-undertone neutrals with a wide value range. Monochrome is one hue, the full luminance ladder. Pick the system; the palette inside it follows.

Colour is meaning before it is anything else. The mood is the shortest path to it.