In graphic design, colour is one of the top factors to creating a message with a meaningful mood and tone whether it’s for an event poster, wedding invitation, web graphics, or illustrated patterns. Understanding how colours work with each other will help you create a more powerful colour scheme for your desired purpose.
Colour exists because of light, and different variations of colour are caused by different levels of light. The rays from the sun contain all of the colours of the rainbow mixed together. When light shines on an object, the colour bounces off. It’s the bounced off or reflected colours that our eyes can see.
Colour Theory 101
A colour wheel (or a colour map) is a tool used in design to display colours by their chromatic relationship and to show the connection between colours.
Primary Colours: Red, Yellow, Blue - these colours are pure colours and they cannot be mixed from other colours on the colour wheel, whereas, all other colours on the wheel can be.
Secondary Colours: Orange, Green, Purple - these colours are mixed from primary colours (Red + Yellow = Orange, Yellow + Blue = Green, Blue + Red = Purple).
Tertiary Colours: Colours that are mixed from one primary colour and one secondary colour (Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow-Green, Green-Blue, Blue-Purple, Purple-Red)
Complementary Colours: Colours that sit opposite each other on the colour wheel. A subtle combination can be achieved by adding in one “near opposite” colour such as Yellow-Green to go with Red and Green.
Analogous Colours: Colours that sit next to each other on the colour wheel such as Red and Purple.
Colour Aspects
Hue – The colour’s place within the spectrum
Intensity – The brightness or dullness of a colour
Shade – When black is added, a colour can have varying hues that appear darker
Tint - When white is added, a colour can have varying hues that appear lighter
Saturation – The relative purity of a colour as it neutralizes to gray
Value – The light or dark level of a colour (usually called brightness, luminance, tone)
Colour Palette Examples
Colour Psychology
It is believed that different colours create different types of psychological reactions, resulting in specific feelings, memories, or experiences coming to mind when seeing a specific colour. Below are some common reactions/emotions that each colour evokes:
Red – Love, Power, Anger, Passion, Excitement, Comfort, Traffic Signs
Orange – Energy, Enthusiasm, Caution, Attention, Happiness, Exoticness
Yellow – Sunshine, Warmth, Brightness, Happiness, Joy, Creativity, Frustration
Green – Nature, Relaxation, Health, Money, Fertility, Envy, Luck, Safety
Blue - Calmness, Stability, Water, Cold/Icy, Distant, Loneliness, Sadness, Productivity
Purple – Royalty, Wealth, Imagination, Wisdom, Spiritual
Pink – Romance, Kindness, Nurturing, Feminine, Compassion, Childish
White – Innocence, Religion, Peace, Cleanliness, Marriage, Concentration, Quietness
Black – Mystery, Boldness, Death, Evil, Fashion, Formality, Luxury, Seriousness
Brown – Neutral, Traditional, Dullness, Earth, Resilience
Colour Models/Modes
A colour system is way of creating a full range of colours from a small set of primary colours. RGB and CMYK are the two most popular models.
RGB (Red, Green, Blue) – RGB is the additive system used for designing on screen for scanners, digital cameras, and computer monitors.
CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) – CMYK is used for commercial printing presses using CMYK ink and is able to produce a different range of colours from RGB. At home printers such as ink-jet and laser also use CMYK.
How to get started with a colour palette...
Think about the message you want to covey to your audience.
Choose one colour that you like.
Try out the colour with varying complementary pairings, analogous pairings, tints, shades, etc.
Save your colour combinations as you’re trying colours out.
Go with the colour combination that is the most aesthetically pleasing and gives off a message that is aligned with your purpose.
Colour Scheme Tools
Adobe Colour - This is a colour palette generator that provides you with the colour numbers, colour percentages depending on your colour mode (RGB/CMYK), and allows you to save the colour palette to your account for future reference.
Pantone - Pantone is the standard language of colour – worldwide and across all colour-conscious industries – and is best known for its Pantone Matching System which helped to revolutionize the printing industry back in the 1960s. Pantone offers colour swatch books and tools for production and palette development.
Brand Colours - A fun colour resource of official big business brand colour codes.
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Original colour theory graphics by Lauren Baker.