The Importance of Your Material's Color Scheme

Finding the perfect color scheme for your project can be a total cinch or an absolute brain buster, depending on your project and inspiration.

Next time you’re struggling to pair colors and find the visual sweet spot, consider using a helpful color tool that lets you mix and match until the perfect combo pops off the screen. Whether you’re pairing two colors, choosing an accent color or picking an extensive array of color options, you can use tools to blend colors to your heart’s content.

Creating a Palette

Finding a theme color might be a cinch, but what about the coordinating colors that you need for a campaign? Use a tool like Paletton to help you pinpoint color, hue and coordinating colors by accessing options around the color wheel.

You can play around with saturation and hues to find the combination that you like best, or custom mix a palette to suit your client’s tastes. With options for choosing complementary colors or triads, you can make unique palettes that fit your project perfectly.

Working with an Inspiration Piece

Of course, sometimes the item that you’re working with brings a color palette or inspiration color of its own. If you’ve got an inspiration piece or a photograph, choose a tool that picks primary colors from a photo of the item and gives you palette suggestions based off that photo.

Color Hunter is a great tool that gives you a custom palette based off a photo that you submit. Use Color Hunter to develop an online color scheme for a physical place or item.

Setting up Color Mood Boards

Even simple tools, like Pinterest, can be invaluable when it comes to color inspiration and pairing. Pinterest’s board style layout lets you pair photos in different arrangements so that you can compare color options right on your computer screen.

If you’re working with multiple inspiration pieces or have a few different color choices that you’re trying to test, Pinterest design boards can provide you the logical layout and comparison options that you need to see your options objectively. For collaborative projects, you can even invite friends or colleagues to pin to the design board and help the process along.

Whether you’re working on a personal project or a commissioned piece, it pays to take the time to develop a strong color scheme for the item that you’re designing.