A primary color is the color displayed most frequently across your app's screens and components.

Primary color

Colors used as alternatives to your brand’s primary and secondary colors (they constitute additional colors to your theme). Alternative colors can be used to distinguish different sections of a UI.

Alternative colors

A secondary color provides more ways to accent and distinguish your product. Having a secondary color is optional, and should be applied sparingly to accent select parts of your UI. If you don’t have a secondary color, your primary color can also be used to accent elements.

Secondary colors are best for:
- Floating action buttons
- Selection controls, like sliders and switches
- Highlighting selected text
- Progress bars
- Links and headlines

Secondary Color in Material Design

Material Design provides a built-in, baseline color theme that can be used out of the box. It includes default colors for:
- Primary and secondary colors
- Variants of primary and secondary colors
- Additional UI colors (e.g., backgrounds, surfaces, errors, typography, and iconography)

All of these colors can be customized for specific applications.

Baseline Material Color Theme

Additional palette colors extend an app's main color theme so data visualizations can distinguish categories not covered by that theme. Although outside the main theme, these colors remain part of the app's full color palette.

Additional palette colors for data visualization

App surfaces use defined palette roles, such as the primary color. Text and icons placed on a surface should use foreground colors selected for clear legibility against that surface.

Color roles for typography and icons on app surfaces

Accessible color variants are light or dark versions of a theme's primary and secondary colors selected for text-and-background combinations. A variant can be used as the background behind light or dark text or as the text color on a light or dark background.

Accessible color variants for text and backgrounds

Important details about the following: 
The baseline Material color theme
Primary color
Secondary color
Surface, background, and error colors
Typography and iconography colors
Accessible colors
Alternative colors
Alternative colors for section themes
Additional colors for data visualization

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

"The Material Design color system can help you create a color theme that reflects your brand or style"

- Color Usage and Palettes
- Color Themes Creation
- Tools for Picking Colors 

The Color System

"The Material Design color system helps you apply color to your UI in a meaningful way. In this system, you select a primary and a secondary color to represent your brand. Dark and light variants of each color can then be applied to your UI in different ways."

Color usage and palettes

Color theme creation

Material palette generator
2014 Material Design color palettes

Learn Before

Related

Learn After