Color is so important in our work. It’s not just part of design, but it’s also part of art, and part of science as well. But, even though we are surrounded by color and see them and deal with them every day, why is it so difficult to work with colors? Why is it so hard to find the right colors for your next design project, logo, brand, or your artwork? How do great artists and designers pick colors for their work? How do you pair colors together? Today we’ll be checking out 5 very useful color tips on how to not suck at color and rock your next or art project. Thanks to Greg Gunn from The Futur Academy for these amazing tips.
Color harmonies are historically proven science-backed techniques to pair colors together in a visually pleasing way. You might already know about some color harmony terms like monochromatic, complementary, analogous, split-complementary, etc. Some apps even have color harmony tools built right into them like adobe illustrator’s color guide and Procreate’s color harmony tool.
Neutral colors are like the supporting cast for your lead colors. They can be warm cool light or dark and they tend to recede into the background leaving room for your big bold color choices.
The most common neutral colors are blacks, whites, grays, and browns. And their most notable trait is that you can’t really tell what the underlying color is. Hence the term neutral. The benefit of using neutrals is that they offer visual relief from your primary colors, and by contrast they make those colors stand out.
The more colors you have to work with, the more difficult it becomes to get them to work together. If they’re all bold bright and vibrant, it can become a real mess.
The way your image looks in grayscale will determine how good it looks in full color. The value of a color as in its lightness is almost more important than the color itself. Because without enough light and dark contrast, your image will be lost, and at that point, the colors don’t really matter.
Low contrast is a great way to frustrate and alienate people from your work, especially when typography is involved. Not only will low contrast make something difficult to read, see, or experience but it can render your message illegible or even invisible to people with color blindness, which is why having a strong contrast especially with type is crucial to accessible design. My general rule of thumb is, if it works in grayscale it’ll work in color.
Aim for balance. Working with color is a lot like playing an instrument. You want things to just kind of naturally flow. You don’t want to play the same chord at the same speed at the same volume throughout the whole song it’ll get really boring.
You want to make sure there’s a nice range of values of hues and of saturation. It’s all about the relationships between colors. You can’t have light without dark and everything else in between.
The 60-30-10 rule is a great place to start. In this case, we’d use our primary sixty percent of the time, our neutrals thirty percent, and save our accent color for the very last ten percent. Striking the right balance with colors is tough. It’s like the sum of the first four tips. You want harmonious colors, room to breathe, and plenty of contrast.
Make your own rules. It’s your work, you can use whatever colors you want. However, you want my two cents though, just be consistent in how you use them. That way, we the viewer understand what the rules are and we have a much better experience.
Striking the right balance between contrast, quantity, and color usage is what will make the biggest difference in your work. So remember, color is a lot like music each note has its place and the quiet moments are just as important as the loud ones.
If you really want to step up your color game then consider taking my course. We cover color theory, how to build your own palette, and work on a real project. Together you can learn more about it by visiting thefutur.com
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