Colour Combinations 101
The importance of colour combinations can often be overlooked when creating designs for your business. Colour palettes boast the unique power to evoke emotions and influence our perception. Even a basic knowledge of combing colours can give you a big head start when it comes to creating your design projects. Here are four simple colour combinations:
Complementary Combination
Complementary colours are located opposite of each other on a colour circle. This simple combination uses contrasting colours to create a stimulating yet straightforward palette.
Analogous Combination
An analogous combination consists of 2 to 5 colours adjacent to each other. Compositions with similar colours can have a calming effect, especially if you’re using muted tones.
Triad Combination
A triad combination is three colours that are equal distance from each other on a colour circle. Triad combinations allow you to keep the high contrast effect of complementary colours while diversifying your palette selection.
Monochromatic Combination
Monochromatic colour palettes use a variety of hues and shades of one colour. These combinations are great at creating harmony and relaxing and easy to view tones.
Colour Palette Tools
If you’re looking to quickly make a great palette, there are plenty of great palette tools and colour wheels online for free. A few of my favourites are listed below, but there’s plenty you can find.
Where to Draw Inspiration
Sometimes coming up with your own colour palettes for projects can be limited because of branding and guidelines. When you do get the opportunity to come up with original colour combinations, movies are an excellent place to draw inspiration.
Colour Psychology
When you’re choosing colours for a project, don’t forget about their underlying implications. Colours have a psychological effect on viewers and can be used to bring emotional nuances to your project. You can learn more about colour psychology on our previous blog post – Colours and How They Make You Feel.
By Harlen Malkowich