In the early days of LEGO, there were only a handful of colors. White, tan, yellow, orange, red, blue, green, grays, black, and some translucent colors were introduced back in the 1950s and ’60s. LEGO fans were limited to this narrow color palette. The downside of this was that they could not make their models very realistic; everything from houses to spaceships was built with the same few colors. Through the following decades, more colors were added. Some were short-lived, while others we still have to this day.

Using more colors helps you to tell a story, to combine colors to highlight important details of a LEGO project.

If you spot a color that you would like to work with, but you aren’t sure how to combine it with other colors, just look at the Periodic Table of LEGO Colors. It will show you the number of the sets the color appears in, and you can study the optional color combinations. The Bricklink and LEGO IDs also guide you through all the pieces made in that color, so you know if you can get everything for your project.