Color Tips

  10 colour inspiration secrets only designers know about.

Color is an important part of any effective design. It can be difficult to curate your color palette when designing because there is so much psychology and emotion tied to the colors you chose. We've compiled a list of 10 color inspiration secrets to help you create the right color scheme every time.

We all know that different colors evoke different emotions, connections, and responses, all of which have an impact on how your brand is perceived. Simply put, color selections have the power to create or ruin a design. Color, in fact, has been demonstrated to enhance brand recognition by up to 80%, memory, engagement with a design piece, and text comprehension, so when picking a color scheme for your design (especially your logo! ), make sure the colors you choose are saying something.

We've come a long way from the days when our colour options were restricted to a tiny batch of natural pigments. Our choices are no longer limited to the hues provided by minerals, animals, and plants.Choosing a palette for a design project has become agonising, to say the least, due to the enormous number of colour selections available. Nearly 8 million user-named colours have been indexed by the Colourlovers community, with over 16 million possible hexadecimal colour combinations.

While there are an infinite number of colours to choose from, it's best to limit yourself to three or four when designing. The colour palette you work with will be created as a result of this.

1. Capture ideas while on the fly.

“I take images of beautiful colour schemes (such as flowers or sunsets) and sample those colours in Photoshop or Illustrator afterwards. It's also a terrific technique to ensure that your work is consistent by matching text or images to any photo you're working with.”

So, if you have a favourite photograph with a colour scheme, take colour samples from it to create a quick, simple, and effective palette. Photocopa and other similar programmes make this process considerably easier. Simply upload your image, explore the various hues that make it up, and in no time at all, you'll have a magnificent colour palette.

2. Make use of a colour wheel.

“All hues love their opposites and are friends with their neighbours.” In this example, the term "friends" refers to hues that are adjacent on a 12-part colour wheel. Chagall, on the other hand, refers to complimentary colours as "Lovers," or tones on the wheel that are immediately opposite each other.

This tip applies to practically any other situation you can think of. To add shadows to your titles or borders to your backdrops, use comparable colour schemes. Because these hues are so similar, they usually combine well. By simply matching colours to their wheel neighbours, you can create new combinations!

If you don't want to sort out these schemes by hand, don't worry: there are plenty of internet tools to assist you figure out who your favourite colours' friends and lovers are.

03. Get ideas from interior design.

When it comes to colour, different design fields face similar challenges. Interior designers, for example, must use textures, objects, and colour schemes that blend well together to harmonise spaces.

In this regard, British designer Elena Genova (of MyCreativeLand) provides some sound advice. “I like the interior design rule that applies to graphic design as well: 60% is the dominant colour, 30% is the secondary colour, and 10% is the accent colour. Split the secondary colour (or perhaps the dominant but never the accent) if you want to introduce a fourth (and so on) colour.”

Investigate other creative fields to learn about their colour usage rules – every artistic discipline is bound to have a few! If you keep an eye out for rooms and buildings that make good use of colour, you'll discover a whole new world of amazing colour techniques.

04. Make mood boards using colors.

“Whenever I see a picture or photo with colours that I like or that appear to blend well together, I save it as a screenshot or pin it for later. Then, when it's time to choose a colour scheme, I look through all of my stored photographs for ideas, and I always come up with something appropriate.”

Allow yourself to look for palette inspiration in a variety of places, including modern designs and historical art, as well as internet and print sources.

You're probably aware of the value of sites like Pinterest, which enable you to collect and store a wide range of digital palettes. But what about inspiration in the form of real objects?

So, whether you come across a cool brochure in a magazine, or merely appreciate the way a piece of junk mail has used colour in its design, file it away. Then, when you're attempting to come up with a stunning palette, take a look through your swipe folder. Color inspiration in a flash!

5. Make use of colour swatches.

A digital colour wheel won't always enough when it comes to deciding on a colour scheme. Stepping away from the screen and looking at an actual colour swatch can be immensely motivating, and Pantone sets provide just that.

What's great about Pantone swatches? Every Pantone colour has a HEX code to match it. For quick and easy palette generation, you may even use hexadecimal colours in the Canva colour picker.

Pantone samples and other physical colour index sets are also invaluable to any designer working on a project for print. When it comes time to go to the printers, knowing exactly how your colour will look on paper may save you a lot of time, money, and stress.

06. Incorporate natural colours.

Natural colour schemes are familiar to our eyes. “The colour combinations are endless” if you take your inspiration from nature, says Gary of the CO-OP.

Landscapes, foliage, fruit, and all things natural may be fantastic, easy-to-find, and inexpensive sources of colour inspiration. Gary creates his creations in South Africa, where he established his online store and is continually influenced by the “bright South African sun.” The hues are vibrant and warm.”

07. Limit yourself to three or four hues.

Avoid blending an excessive quantity of colours unless you're trying for a purposeful, full-on rainbow look. Rodrigo German, a graphic designer from Chile, suggests utilising three colours to keep your images looking clean and uncomplicated. He recommends utilising textures to tone down some of the additional colours when employing more than three.

So, if you ever find yourself stuck in a creative rut with your design or suspect something isn't quite right, take a look at your palette and see if you can reduce the number of colours in your palette–ideally to the magic number of three.

08. Choose colours that reflect the atmosphere of your subject.

Take into account the theme you're attempting to convey in your design. Is it business, sports, fashion, or beauty? Consider an emotion you'd like to connect with the action after that. Is it a sweet fashion flyer or a brash sports flyer? Is it stylish, feminine, cheery, solemn, or serious-looking?

Before you start working on the details, the designer of Graphic Box recommends coming up with a general concept of the colour theme. “For instance, ‘I require a romantic purple' or ‘I require a charming pink.'”

Familiarizing yourself with colour theory is another good way to improve the power and effect of your colour choice. Find out what certain common colours can do to people mentally and subconsciously when utilised right by doing some study and reading a few studies. Remember that colours selected with intention and logic are frequently the most powerful!

09. Look for themed palettes on Pinterest.

“If I were designing a beach-themed poster, I would just search for ‘Summer Color Palettes' and pick one.”

This is what a basic Pinterest search for "Summer Color Palettes" looks like. What's the best part? Color inspiration may be found in a variety of design sectors, including interiors, fashion, graphic design, and even event design.

10. Visit color-lovers' websites.

Colorlovers is a creative community where people from all over the world develop and share colour palettes, patterns, and other design elements. Join the site and browse through millions of colour palettes produced by users to get inspiration for your next project.