Hue you doing?

Yeah, I know the joke was lame… Anyway, I read somewhere that Walt Disney used to say that “we live in a wonderful world of color”. I guess that, as designers – online and offline, we all agree with that. And it’s also no secret that we spend hours searching for a perfect color scheme for each of our projects. When I started out, I didn’t really put much attention to this. I used to simply go on with the work, searching for colors as I progressed. Huge mistake that was. I usually got to a point where I couldn’t find a nice color to fit in with the rest of the design. Therefore, I went on to study color. And I was impressed on how much more complex the theme was than I have ever imagined. All that talk about hues, saturation, value, primary, secondary… seemed all so confusing. But in the end I realized it’s actually pretty simple. Once you get a hold on the concepts, it all becomes very clear and easy to use. For example, in gradients, I used to change the value (quantity of white and black added to the base color, usually creating tints – adding white – or shades – adding black) of the color I used. Today I change the hue (the color: red, blue, green, yellow…) itself, finding a very similar, but different, color. The gradients look much nicer.

I personally like the monochromatic schemes, which uses on hue with different values, tints and shades. Mixing it with a color or two from an analogous scheme (colors adjacent to the base color) or from the complementary scheme (color from the other side of the color wheel) really pops out an element. But you can really create any type of color scheme you want. I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to use colors, depending on what you want to convey.

What I think the main problem with colors is having your client understand why you used certain colors for their design. I know and understand that sometimes you can’t use a color for a specific client due to some impediment; for example, if the main competitor already uses that color, in order to avoid mistaken identity. This was a huge issue when I worked at TV1, for the Bank of Brazil (BB). All we could ever use was yellow and blue. All other colors – or almost all of them – referred to other banks. That’s fine. These are very well-known institutions. The problem is when a client wants a different color for reasons that seem irrelevant.

I had a project a while back in which the client asked us to change the color of the design because, back in his country, the color scheme I chose contained a color that meant something bad, evil or religious. I don’t really remember what. The way I see it, if we were in that country, or if he was making the site to prospect clients over there, I’d be fine with it. But in this case, I don’t think that was a valid argument, specially because the color scheme chosen complemented his line of work, made it easier to follow. I actually think that the color i question is enjoyed by the general public of the country in which he was prospecting. That ended up being a big disappointment for me. All the cool features and animations I had prepared for the site had to be thrown away because the new color scheme seized to work with the elements in them. Who has ever seen blue or purple wood? Well, that’s part of our jobs as designers…

Anaway, I ran into a nice post on color schemes at Smashing Magazine I found very interesting. So I’m putting up a link to it. It’s actually a three part guide, which quickly and easily describes colors and what you can do with them, what they mean, color schemes…

Color Theory for Designers, Pt 1: The Meaning of Color

Color Theory For Designers, Pt 2: Understanding Concepts And Terminology

Color Theory for Designer, Pt 3: Creating Your Own Color Palettes

And although you can find many, many color scheme sites all over the internet, the one I most like and often use is Adobe Kuler. So here’s the link: kuler.adobe.com .