In the previous part of this series, we talked about choosing a base color.
Well, while that was important, I'm sure some of us were starting to wonder where the core stuff of actually creating a color guide comes in. In your defense, Part 1 was a month ago.
That's where Part 2 comes in. Here I will be talking about creating your own cohesive color palette. I'll cover choosing a good base color, picking neutrals, choosing an accent to the base color, creating balanced grays and finally applying our colour scheme. By the end of this article, we should have learnt how to create a simple color guide we can use in our next project.
In part 1, we talked about choosing a base color and tips on choosing a base color, where we mentioned what we should consider when choosing a base color. Part of what we discussed is how we should be aware of our target audience and the inherent meaning of our base color to them, choosing complementary colors, and if possible avoid using our competitors' colors. Remember that the colors you choose can work for or against the project you're trying to create.
With our tips from part 1 in mind, we want to choose a base color. So let's say we choose purple 😀.
What's next is to find a nice shade or tint or tone of blue 😥. Cheer up, so instead of opening up a color-picker to find this shade or tint or tone of blue, we will use other people's choices to aid us. Do you mean we will grab colors from people's designs? No we will use inspiration websites like Dribbble and Designspiration to help us out.
Go to Dribbble and Designspiration and click on the 'colors' link in both.
You should have these:
Inspiration websites to find the right base color. Dribble (up) and Designspiration (bottom)
Choose a shade from each website to see that color in use.
Apart from seeing different versions of your base color. You will also see colors that match.
Pick one that best suits your project.
Below with examples for each are some of the predefined color scheme standards that make creating new schemes easier, especially for newbies.
These color schemes are made up of different shades, tones and tints within a specific hue. They are more often than not the simplest schemes to create. But they can be boring when done poorly.