As a designer, color has always been one of my favorite topics. In school, color psychology and color theory were always subjects that I found truly fascinating. Color is exciting and can go a long way in adding power and substance to a design.

Choosing your brand’s color palette is one of the more fun things you’ll do when building your brand (FYI: Ideally, your palette should include anywhere from four to six colors). However, while your color palette is very much a matter of personal preference, there are some basic things that you should be aware of in order to make the best possible choice for your brand. While it’s not crucial that you know or understand color theory in its entirety, familiarizing yourself with some basic color terminology will definitely work in your favor.

Note: Canva offers a great feature to help users better understand color theory and the information outlined here. Click here for some helpful visuals.

Basic Color Terms:

Primary Colors: The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. They are the source or “parents” of all other colors. 

Secondary Colors: The secondary colors are orange, green, and purple. Secondary colors are created by mixing together two primary colors. Example: 

Yellow + Red = Orange

Red + Blue = Purple

Blue + Yellow = Green

Tertiary Colors: These are the in-between colors. Tertiary colors include yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green, and yellow-green.

Hue: Hue is the term used for the color itself, such as red or blue.

Saturation: Saturation indicates the strength or weakness of a color.

Value: Value refers to how light or dark a color is.

Tone: A tone of a color is created by adding gray to a pure hue.

Shade: A shade is created by adding black to a pure hue.

Tint: A tint is created by adding white to a hue.

Temperature: Color temperature is a term used to describe the general warmth or coolness of a color. For instance, colors like blue, green, and light purple are cool colors, while orange, red and yellow are considered warm colors. In terms of feeling, cool colors come across as calm, soothing, and refreshing. Warm colors exude coziness, passion, and playfulness.

Basic Types of Color Palettes:

Monochromatic: Monochromatic color palettes use different shades and depths of a single color. These types of palettes are the simplest to create, and may (arguably) be the safest to use since there’s little chance of creating an unattractive scheme. Be careful, however, as monochromatic palettes can come across as boring if not done well.

Complementary: Complementary colors are the colors positioned opposite each other on the color wheel (like red and green, blue and orange, etc.). Using a complementary color palette is a great way to communicate a sense of balance.

Split-Complementary: The split-complementary color scheme is a variation of the complementary color scheme. In addition to the base color, it uses the two colors adjacent to its complement. This color scheme has the same strong visual contrast as the complementary color scheme but has less tension. This kind of color palette can be a  good choice for beginners because it is difficult to get wrong.

Analogous: An analogous color palette will contain one main color and the colors from either side of it on the color wheel. These palettes work well to effectively communicate uniformity and consistency in a design.

Triadic: Triadic color palettes use three colors that are positioned at equal distances on the color wheel (think red, yellow, and blue). This method creates a more diverse color palette. The colors in a triadic color palette usually tend to be quite vibrant even when toned, tinted, or shaded. That being so, be careful when considering the balance between the colors you choose. To strike a proper balance, a good rule of thumb is to choose one main color in the triad and use the remaining colors as accents.

Tetradic: A tetradic color palette uses four colors (two sets of complementary pairs that are found opposite each other on the color wheel), and is one of the hardest color schemes to pull off effectively. This type of color palette works best when only one of the four colors is dominant. You should also strive for a balance of warm and cool colors within this color scheme.

When choosing your color palette you should also take into consideration the meanings of different colors. You can refresh your memory of colors and their meanings by reading here. 

Now that you know a little more about color itself, how do you decide what color palette is going to work best for your brand? Try one (or more) of these methods.

How to Choose Your Color Palette:

Start with Your Favorite Color: Simple enough, right? Include your favorite color in your color palette and then use the color wheel to build your palette around that one particular color. You can also browse the color sites listed further down for this same purpose.

Make a Vision Board: I love a good vision board! They’re useful for so many things and are fun to make. There are lots of ways to design vision boards, but I recommend having a go with this one from Canva.

Get Inspiration from a Photo You Love: It doesn’t necessarily have to be a photo from your personal collection. Have a look around some stock photography sites and find a photo that speaks to you. From there, go to  Adobe Color and click on “Extract Theme” from the top left navigation bar. Drag and drop the photo you’ve chosen, and Adobe will automatically generate a color palette based on the colors featured in the photo. You can also use the Color Mood function to create different variations of the palette.

Browse Color Palettes Online: Have a snoop around a site like COLOURlovers or Design Seeds. Both sites allow you to browse through thousands of different palettes, as well as search by color or theme. COLOURlovers will also let you do a descriptive keyword search. This is especially helpful if you want to do a search using a word that describes your brand or represents characteristics of it (such as natural, organic, holistic, wellness, etc).

Color’s ability to communicate and enhance the design of your brand really can’t be exaggerated. That’s why it’s so important for those building a brand to know the basics of color and its capabilities. Use the tools provided here and you can be confident that you are choosing a color palette that not only looks great but works to enrich your brand.

Need more color inspiration? Check out 6 Elegant Color Palettes for a Timeless Brand.