There are actually two types of color wheels – subtractive and additive. The first color wheel was created by Isaac Newton in 1704, but many different versions have been developed and used since then. The Color WheelĪ color wheel is a tool that helps us understand the relationship between colors.
This is where the color wheel and color theory comes into the picture, enabling creators to produce visually attractive content to draw your attention. While informative content plays a key role in informing and educating the audience, it is visuals like charts, graphs, and info-graphics that make your overall content interactive and eye-catching. When using Instagram or TikTok, what pieces of content force you to halt your scrolling journey and take a deeper look? More likely than not, they are visual contents like images, videos, and GIFs. What are some other sites that embody handmade? What colors do they use? Do they use a complimentary color scheme? Analogous? My guess is many of them will use a red aesthetic with warm colors because the concept of "handmade" is a very human notion.Color Wheel Everything you need to know about the color wheel & color theory Say your concept is “handmade" like in the Preserve example above. Or sometimes I'll use the random color generator. I like to find inspiration from sites like Mind Sparkle Mag. You want things you like that ALSO work with your website's concept and brand. If you’ve chosen a concept and know what the brand represents, now it's time to figure out what you like and measure it against your concept and the brand. Your instinct will be to push for colors you really like, but small businesses the owners live and breath the business so it’s just going to be a matter of what they like. Get examples of websites they admire and ask what they like about them. For small businesses, it’s much more important to find out what the owners like. But before doing this, make sure you clear it with your creative director or the client.ĭoing a site for a small client? In this case, the brand won’t be well defined in a style guide. There are some instances when the site experience you're creating will be so far removed from the brand that you can use other unrelated colors. Or a site for Ikea would use their signature blue and yellow. If you’re doing a site for Target, you would likely use a combination of red and white, because red is a large part of their brand. In that case, they'll have a well-defined brand which will make picking colors easier. Or maybe you're doing a site for a big company. Blacks, whites, dark, and muted colors would be a better fit for a war memorial site, these colors would be "on brand". Bright and happy colors would feel out of place, in the same way that someone selling balloons near the memorial would feel tacky. The tone (or brand) of any war memorial is respectful and serious, so your color choices should be as well. Let's say you’re doing a site for the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington DC. Water & the color red live in different worlds. If your concept is water-related, using lots of red probably won’t work well. Having a concept can greatly narrow down your color options.
Look at each example and try to figure out what the concept is (hint: answers at the bottom). Here are some handpicked examples of sites with concepts: Preserve, Legwork, Si Le Soleil. Let's explore each of them.ĭoes your site have a concept? It probably should. If you can figure out these three things, choosing colors will be much easier. They are: The concept of the site, the brand, and your personal preferences. There are three ideas you can use that will make it easier to pick colors. Eventually, I would fumble my way to create something nice, but it often took a while. My choices weren’t based on much - either trends at the time or whatever mood I was in.
When I was a beginner, I often used too many colors in my designs. When you select the right palette, it can make a website sing.