Alternative colours
Alternative colours are, in Material Design 2, colours additional to a brand’s primary and secondary colours that allow different themes within one product or product family
What it means, how it is used and where it comes up, with its related concepts.
What it is and how it works
They were used, for example, to distinguish sections of an app with their own themes, provide light and dark versions or give each product in a family its own colour variant while keeping consistency. The guidelines warned they should be used with care, as adding colours makes a coherent system harder to maintain.
Material Design 3 does not use this term: it organises colour into roles (primary, secondary, tertiary, surface, error) and light and dark schemes generated from tonal palettes. The underlying idea, defining alternative themes in a controlled way, persists in design systems through tokens.
Also known as
Alternative colors