Rectangular tetradic color schemes use two pairs of analogous colors that sit opposite each other on the color wheel (i.e., two sets of neighboring complementary colors). The analogous colors can be directly next to each other or have a single hue in between them.

A rectangular color scheme is the richest of all available color schemes. This gives you the most variety when working with color. These schemes work best when you choose one of the 4 colors to be a dominant color and others as accent colors. Otherwise, your project may appear too busy and unbalanced. This simply means avoiding using all 4 colors in equal portions.^[1]

Use rectangular color schemes to:

• Draw attention to a photo, room, or advertising piece
• To create a typography hierarchy by using the darkest color for body text and the 3 remaining colors for headings and subheadings