There are times, when you're about to create a design, or a drawing, you have what you're about to create in your mind, and you're ready! But then you start thinking about what colors you want to put in your work and you become unsure, what color will fits your work best? How many colors should you use?
The answer to that is : it depends on what you're making, when you're making it, and the purpose of your work. A piece that you create for a summer vacation invitation will have different color palette from a piece for a birthday party invitation. Here are some tips and trick on how to create a color palette to fit your needs! Read to the end for a special tip for creating a color palette fast and easy
Knowing the Color Wheel
First, you need to know about your color wheel! Here's a how a color wheel commonly looks
This is a how a basic color wheel looks, some will have more colors, some will have less, but you get the idea, now, there are some set of color combinations that are compatible
Knowing Your Color Combinations
The basic color combinations that you can get from a color wheel is :
1. Complementary
Complementary colors are colors that sit directly opposite of each other in the color wheel, it can be used to add life and dynamics to your work, it creates contrast while still maintaining balance between the colors
2. Split Complementary
A variation of the complementary color combination, instead of taking the main color's complementary color, the split complementary takes the colors next to it, it provides a good contrast, but less intensity than complementary colors
3. Triadic
Triadic color combinations takes 3 colors that are evenly spaced around the color wheel, because this color wheel have 12 colors, it will take 1 in every 4 colors. It resulted in an interesting color dynamic that have some contrast, but is still balanced and pleasing to look
4. Tetradic
Tetradic combination is a combination of 4 colors takes 2 pair of complementary color, in choosing tetradic combination, you should pay attention to the balance between the cool and warm color in your palette
5. Quadrilateral
Quadrilateral color combination takes 4 colors that are evenly spaced around the color wheel, because this color wheel have 12 colors, it will take 1 in every 3 colors. This color combination gives a balanced set of colors
6. Analogous
Analogous color combination takes each color that is next to the main color, this color combination is good for a rich monochromatic feel to your work
Creating Your Own Palette
Now that you know your color wheel, and you know the basic combinations that you can use, you can start making your own color palette to suits your needs!
1. Pick A Main Color
The first step in creating your color palette is to choose your main color! This color will be the centerpiece and most dominant part of your work, when picking a main color think in mind what your work will be used for
2. Decide the General Theme of Your Palette
Now that you have a main color, think about what you're making, do you need to make a work that is lively and colorful? Or do you need to make a work that is more muted? Maybe you need to make a work that is neutral?
After you know the general theme that you want for your colors, now you can move to the next step :
3. Decide on Your Combination
With your main color and a general theme in place, you can now start to rifle through the six basic color combinations, and mix and match them to your needs! Color palettes usually contains between 4-6 colors, but you can add or subtract the amount until it fits your needs! Remember to think about your color balances and contrasts!
Here are some examples :
Main Color : Orange
General Theme : Summer, lively and bright
Because the theme is to have a lively and bright summer colors based off orange, complementary and split complementary combination might not fit because it contrasted too much from orange.
Instead, I will combine Analogous and Triadic combination, so my color palette might look something like this :
With orange as the main focus, the analogous combination give the orange a nice rich bright combination, and the triadic combination adds some dynamic without contrasting too much from the main color
Let's look at another example
Main color : Green
General theme : pop art, high contrast colors
Because the theme is pop art and needs highly contrasting colors, using combination like triadic, quadrilateral or analogous might not be the best choice, because they don't have the highest contrast.
Instead I'll be using both complementary and split complementary colors, so my palette might look something like this :
With green as the main color, all 3 colors selected contrasted nicely, while still having a little bit of variations
With that, now you have your own color palette! Remember that these are just the very basic of it, you can explore the hue, saturation and brightness of your colors until it truly fits your needs!
Special Tip : Color Palette Websites
But wait! Does all that sounds like too much work for you? Sometimes you just want to be able to get a color palette quick and easy, and really, I don't blame you, so, in order to cheat the system a little bit, here are some websites that offers to make your color palettes for you, completely for free!
1. ColorHunt.Co
ColorHunt.Co is a website where you can easily browse for color palettes that are created specifically for designer and artists! You can choose by categories on how you want your color palettes to be themed, and the interface is super user-friendly!
2. Coolors.Co
Coolors.Co lets you generate your own color palette by generating random color palette and letting you choose which color you want to keep and which color you want to change until it creates your perfect color palette, or browse already existing color palettes, and if you sign up on their website, you'll be able to save up to 5 color palettes that you've made!
3. Paletton.Com
Paletton.Com allows you to make a color palette based on 4 color combinations that is Monochrome, Analogous/Adjacent, Triadic and Tetradic/Quadrilateral color combination, or create your own combination! You can also play with the hue, saturation and brightness to adjust the color palette to your needs!
I hope you find this useful!
Would you rather make it on your own from scratch, or would you rather get a website-generated color palette instead?
Tell us what you think in the comments below :)