Today's topic is color. Color is one of my favorite things about design, and the reason is, because the entire look of a design or brand can change with one simple color swap or addition. You can change the tone, the mood, the meaning, the brilliance, or even the history of a design through color, and that is truly amazing.
When it comes to color schemes my best advice is: less is more. The smaller color scheme you have the better because things like information for your audience/customer won't get lost in all that rainbow. I usually try to stick to 3 colors, 4 at max (you can use up to 6, but I personally never go that high).
My second piece of advice is it is highly highly important to know color schemes such as complementary, triad, analogous, monochromatic, split complementary, shades, square, I could go on, but you get the point. It is necessary to know these schemes, because when you are deciding on your colors for your brand identity (a term we learned last week) and you don't know what color looks best to go with the "aquamarine" you chose, then you can turn to the color wheel and think, "hmm, I know that blue's complementary color is orange, maybe a nice tangerine would work well!" (Since you know, blue and orange are complementary colors? Stay with me here!) Anyways, I digress, and it is v important to know your color schemes when doing your own scheming of colors.
My third and final piece of advice is: do research! One of my favorite things to do is "decade designs" or in other words, designs based around a certain decade. I have learned so much from looking up images, phrases, designs, patters, people, apparel, and even just reading about the era on google. Knowing that look you are going for and doing research on it absolutely is 100% necessary. My mom would be proud of me and all the research I am advocating for all you people to go out and do! She herself is a walking history textbook, shoutout Mamma!
So, I hope this inspires you! Don't be afraid to test the boundaries and try new color schemes, give it a fresh coat of paint (or virtual paint haha!), and see what you discover! You never know you might find a new color scheme you like! Now go paint your rainbow!
P.S. A great tool I use (thank you Adobe you are my life) is color.adobe.com/create
It is great for helping you stick to those color schemes, it has the HEXX codes right there and lays out an entire palette for you! Check it out! S/O Adobe!