Creating a Color Palette

Imagine you've been tasked with creating an eye-catching color palette for a fun, colorful, high-end fashion brand. The first step is to choose a base color. If the client hasn't provided any color preferences or brand guidelines, consider these options:

• Evaluate competitors: Check out the color palettes of existing brands in the fashion industry.
• Find inspiration: Browse platforms like Dribbble or Behance for fresh ideas.
• Compile your ideas: Create a mood board with images and illustrations that reflect the brand's vibe.
• Consider color psychology: Think about the emotions and associations you want users to connect with the brand.

For this project, bright purple could work as the base color since it symbolizes creativity, luxury, individualism, and mystery. While it can have a spiritual feel, it also brings positive and vibrant energy.^[1] Ensure that the base color isn’t too saturated or dark, as this might evoke the wrong emotions or turn users away.

When creating a personal color palette, a complementary color scheme is often the first choice. This scheme uses colors from opposite sides of the color wheel and can be expanded by incorporating tones, tints, and shades. For example, if your base color is bright purple, its complement would be grass green. However, direct opposites with the same chroma or value can sometimes feel too intense or dramatic. To soften the effect, you can introduce transitional colors like pale purple or tender green, or explore more complex color schemes.

A split-complementary color scheme offers a less intense alternative. Instead of using the direct opposite hue, it uses the colors on either side of it. Triadic and tetradic schemes are more challenging to balance but can produce striking results. Triadic harmonies consist of 3 colors equally spaced around the color wheel, like blue, yellow, and red. Tetradic schemes, also known as double complementary, use two pairs of complementary colors.

Analogous and monochromatic schemes are among the simplest and safest options to create. They offer less contrast than complementary harmonies. Monochromatic schemes focus on different tones, shades, and tints of a single hue, such as various shades of blue.

An analogous scheme takes a slightly different approach by using 3 colors of similar chroma that are placed next to each other on the color wheel, like blue, teal, and green. To enhance visual interest, you can also incorporate various shades, tints, and tones.

In this example, the analogous color scheme is an ideal base. It’s vibrant, bright, and eye-catching, and with a few adjustments, it can perfectly align with the color palette needs of a high-end fashion brand.

To add more interest to this example, you'll need to tweak the current analogous color scheme. By adjusting the saturation (how pale or pure the hue is) and brightness, you can make the palette more dynamic. For instance, you may replace the rather intense maroon with a more cheerful and vibrant pink. Instead of the dreamy purple, you can opt for a darker shade to emphasize luxury and style. These changes introduce more variety and give the color palette greater flexibility.

While browns, tans, and off-whites can create a warm and cozy feel, they aren't ideal for a luxury fashion brand. Instead, blacks, grays, and whites bring a sophisticated, refined, and minimalistic touch.

When paired with purple and pink, black enhances the elegance and sophistication of the palette, while white adds a refreshing and crisp contrast.

As a project grows, maintaining color consistency across the product becomes more challenging. A brand style guide is essential for helping graphic designers, marketers, web developers, and other team members stay aligned and present a unified brand identity to the public.^[2]

Key elements of the brand style guide include the logo, typography, imagery guidelines, brand voice, and, of course, the color palette. Define the primary, secondary, and tertiary/accent colors to guide their use in different contexts. Be sure to include CMYK, HEX, and RGB color codes to ensure consistent use across digital and printed materials.

Once your color palette is set, it's time to apply it to your designs. To achieve a balanced composition, many designers rely on the 60-30-10 rule. This rule suggests that the primary color should cover 60% of the design area, the secondary color 30%, and the tertiary/accent color the remaining 10%.

Accents are typically applied to elements that need to stand out, such as CTA buttons. The primary and secondary colors should be relatively neutral to enhance readability and ensure the design is accessible to all users.^[3]

By following the 60-30-10 guideline, you can avoid visual clutter and create aesthetically pleasing designs.