How to Customise Wheel Colours and Images

Why design matters

A wheel's job is to pick a result, but how it looks affects how people feel about it. A bright, bold wheel creates excitement at a party. A calm palette suits a classroom first thing in the morning. A wheel in your brand colours looks professional in a giveaway stream. Good design also helps people read the result, which matters more than anything else. This guide covers every customisation option, from one-click palettes to a fully branded wheel with your logo, along with tips for making each choice readable on the screen you'll use.

Pick a palette

Open the Design tab and choose a palette. The wheel redraws instantly so you can compare options. Classic uses bold reds, pinks, greens, blues and purples that read well from a distance and suit most uses. Softer palettes such as Soft and Candy suit younger children and relaxed settings. Mono gives a minimal look that works with brand colours. Seasonal palettes are handy for Halloween, winter holidays or spring events.

Palettes cycle through their colours around the wheel. If you have fewer entries than colours, you'll only see the first few. If you have many entries, colours repeat. When two neighbouring slices end up the same colour, add or remove an entry, or set one slice's colour manually.

Colour a single slice

Every entry row has a colour swatch. Click it to choose any colour for that slice. This is useful for a colour picker wheel where each slice should match its name, for highlighting a grand prize in gold, for team wheels where each team has its own colour, or for marking "lose a turn" in grey. Individual colours override the palette for those slices only, so the rest of the wheel keeps its theme.

Use this sparingly. A wheel where every slice is hand-picked can look chaotic. Two or three highlighted slices on a consistent palette usually look best.

Add images to slices

Click the image button on an entry and choose a picture from your device. The image is resized and shown on the slice in place of the text. The entry's name still appears in the winner popup, so the result is always clear. Images are great for young children who can't read yet, for food or movie wheels with posters or photos, for prize wheels showing the actual items, and for wheels of pets, characters or team logos.

Choose simple, high-contrast images that are recognisable when small. A clear photo of a pizza works; a detailed photo of a restaurant interior doesn't. Square images crop most predictably. Images are stored in your browser along with the wheel, so very large files can slow things down. Smaller images, a few hundred pixels across, are plenty.

Centre logo

The Images tab lets you place a logo or photo in the centre of the wheel, replacing the default centre. Schools use their crest, businesses their logo, and streamers their channel avatar. Use a square image with a transparent or plain background so it sits neatly in the circle. The centre stays fixed while the wheel spins, so it remains visible throughout.

Background image

You can also set a background image behind the wheel. A subtle texture, a blurred photo of your venue or a branded backdrop can make screenshots and recordings look polished. Keep backgrounds low in contrast so the wheel stands out. Busy patterns behind a busy wheel are hard on the eyes. In OBS overlay mode, the background is transparent, so this option affects the normal page only.

Branding a wheel

For giveaways, events and streams, a branded wheel looks more trustworthy and more memorable. Start with Mono or a palette close to your brand, then set two or three slices to your exact brand colours. Add your logo to the centre, give the wheel a clear title, and choose a sound that suits your tone, from upbeat fanfare to a subtle chime. Download a winner image from the popup and it will carry your branding into social posts.

Check your brand guidelines for colour contrast. Many brand palettes include pale tones that look elegant on a website but disappear on a projector. Use your strongest colours on the wheel and save the pale ones for backgrounds.

Readability first

However the wheel looks, people need to read it. Keep text short: names shrink to fit their slice, so long entries become tiny. Make sure text contrasts with slice colours. Light text needs dark slices and dark text needs light slices. Avoid very similar neighbouring colours, which make slice boundaries hard to see. If you have many entries, use fullscreen for a bigger wheel. The result popup always shows the winner in large text, but people enjoy following the spin.

Designing for projectors and TVs

Projectors wash out colours and reduce contrast, especially in bright rooms. Choose saturated colours rather than pastels and test from the back of the room. TVs are usually sharper but can be viewed from wide angles. Check that slices are readable from the side. Interactive whiteboards can look dim, so increase contrast and use fewer slices.

Designing for streams and video calls

Video compression softens edges and fine text. Use bold colours, thick slice boundaries and short labels. On a stream, make the overlay large enough to read on a phone, because many viewers watch on small screens. On video calls, share only the browser tab and choose fullscreen so the wheel fills the shared area.

Accessibility and colour

Don't rely on colour alone to carry meaning. If a red slice means a forfeit, write the word too. Avoid red–green pairings for slices that need to be distinguished, since red–green colour vision deficiency is common. High-contrast palettes help everyone, including people with low vision and anyone sitting far from the screen.

Sound to match the look

Design isn't only visual. The Sound Lab lets you choose tick and winner sounds and set the volume. A playful wheel suits a bright fanfare; a classroom wheel might use a soft click and a gentle chime. Matching sound to visuals makes the whole experience feel deliberate.

Saving and sharing your design

Design choices save automatically with your wheel. A share link includes colours and settings, so others see the same look. Images you upload are stored in your browser, and very large images may not fit in a link, so share the wheel from the device where you added them, or re-add images on the other device. Save a few styled wheels for different occasions and switch between them in seconds.

Quick design recipes

Classroom: Classic palette, short first names, soft click, gentle chime. Kids' party: Candy palette, picture slices, confetti on, fanfare loud. Giveaway: Mono palette with brand colours on key slices, logo in the centre, recorded on a clean background. Stream: bold palette, large overlay, short labels, transparent background via overlay mode. Colour lesson: hand-set each slice to match its colour name. Start from one of these and adjust until it suits your audience.

Try it now

Put these ideas into practice with the Colour Picker Wheel, OBS Wheel Overlay, Accessibility Checklist, or open the main spin the wheel tool.