Creating Your Own Color Palettes
By now you should have a good idea of what color is, what each of the colors mean and have a good understanding of the different types of color scheme available to you. However, knowing all of that doesn’t help if you have no idea where to get started, or how to put that information into action.
The Impact of Color in Your Projects
Color is one of those things that seems really simple – but can be really difficult to get just right. And, as it’s one of the really visual, focal parts to any design, then it’s so, so easy to notice when something doesn’t quite sit right. If such a major part of your design doesn’t feel right, or represent your company, service or brand well, then it can make all the difference between users that stay and explore and those that disappear.
Owing to this, when you’re choosing a color scheme you need to be really aware of the impact that color can have in your design – both good and bad.
It’s absolutely fine to roll with your own color schemes and stray away from the default types (such as complementary), but when you’re just starting out in working with creating your own color schemes you’re probably better sticking with the main color scheme types. That way, it makes it more difficult – though not impossible – to take a wrong step and end up with a bad color scheme.
Choosing Suitable Color Schemes
First up, we’ll look at how you can start choosing a suitable color scheme for your project.
What you need to be thinking about here is what colors are suited to your brand, company or industry on the whole. There’s a fantastic infographic over at Column Five Media which talks about the colors used in the top 100 brands around the world.
What I love to do is create mind-maps exploring the different tones and ideas that I have for a project – and look at the kind of message that the brand might want to project online. Then, compare this mind-map of ideas to the color meanings and see which match up the most – and that can help you to see which colors might be best suited for the project or brand.
