Travel Minder - Color System

Color plays a subtle yet powerful role in shaping our experiences with digital products. In this project, I explore building a complete color system from the ground up.

How do specific colors guide users through an interface? Why is consistency so crucial across a product’s design?

I dive into the thoughtful decisions behind crafting a color palette that defines a brand and enhances usability, accessibility, and overall design harmony.

From neutral tones that establish a clean layout to system colors that provide immediate feedback, each color category plays a specific role in guiding users through their tasks.

Brand Colors

The brand colors provide a strong foundation for the entire color system. You will see these colors reflected throughout the interface, ensuring the palette adapts well across both branding elements and functional components.

Neutral Colors

Neutral colors are essential for maintaining balance, providing contrast without overwhelming the primary brand colors. These shades support typography, backgrounds, and subtle UI elements. By offering a wide range of neutral tones, the palette ensures flexibility for various UI components, ensuring consistency across both light and dark mode.

Primary/Accent Colors

The primary and accent colors were derived directly from the core brand colors. These colors are used for call-to-actions & navigation components. The combination of light, base, and dark shades offers flexibility and ensures that the design remains consistent while maintaining the brand's visual identity.

Secondary Colors

Secondary colors provide additional visual cues within the interface, particularly in tables and tags. These colors help quickly differentiate and classify statuses or categories.

Tertiary colors

Tertiary colors are used to indicate task prioritization and draw attention to critical or urgent elements. These colors are chosen to provide clear visual cues that help quickly identify tasks requiring immediate action.

System colors

System colors are critical for providing immediate feedback and signaling system status. Each color represents a specific state, such as error, warning, success, or informational messages, helping quickly interpret feedback and take appropriate actions.

Color Usage In App

With the full color system established, we now move into the application phase. In the following images, you will see how the color system is applied across the UI. Each component of the interface is styled to ensure consistency, contrast, and accessibility.

• Light and dark mode: A comparison of how colors adapt across themes
• Status and tag indicators: See how secondary colors are used to classify and differentiate statuses
• System feedback: Colors for Instant feedback for error, warning, success, and informational messages
• Color hierarchy and contrast: Ensuring clarity and visual balance in text, borders, icons, and backgrounds

App Light/Dark Mode

System Light/Dark Mode

WCAG

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is a set of standards designed to ensure web content is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. The colors and text in this app meet WCAG compliance, ensuring readability.

Conclusion

A clear and well-defined color system is essential for maintaining a clean and efficient workflow when designing digital products. Though some may see this step as time-consuming, it’s crucial not to skip it. A structured palette that covers branding and UI elements, ensures consistency throughout the design, which in turn reduces rework and speeds up development.

For clients, investing time into building a robust color system from the start will ultimately save money by preventing costly redesigns or inconsistencies later in the process. A solid color foundation streamlines collaboration, simplifies decision-making, and ensures scalability as the product evolves.