Understanding basic color theory will help you grow into a confident designer.
In this lesson, we show you how to find and use color combinations
to make your design effective and colorful.
The most basic colors are red, yellow, and, blue.
We call these primary colors.
And when we mix them together, we can start to make any color we like.
By mixing two primary colors, we create secondary colors.
Let's see what happens when we combine red and blue.
We make purple.
When we mix secondary colors with primary colors, we discover a third range, tertiary colors.
But that's not all there is to it. We can change the brightness or darkness of these colors too.
When we add black to colors, we're changing its shade.
When we add white, we create a tint of that color.
As well as light and dark, colors can appear warm or cool.
It's easy to remember which colors are warm. Just think of a fire or a sunset.
Reds, yellows, and oranges are all warm colors.
To put out a fire, you'd use water.
So the opposite is where we notice cool colors. Think blues and greens.
But how do we combine these colors to apply color to our designs?
The color wheel is a useful tool. With just one look, we can see every color imaginable.
The wheel also helps us to find color combinations like these.
With complementary colors, opposites attract.
These are two colors that live on opposite sides of the wheel.
Some examples of complementary color combinations
are green and red, yellow and purple, orange and blue.
Because complementary colors are opposites, they have high contrasts.
So we use these pairings to stand out.
When we talk about how bright or dark a color is, we're talking about its tone.
In monochromatic color combinations, we have variations of the same color like these.
We get tones, tints, or shades by adding black or white to colors.
Monochromatic colors have low contrast.
So we use these to give designs a different feeling.
What feeling does this design show?
Analogous or sometimes called sympathetic colors
are colors that sit closely together on the color wheel.
Think of these colors as sets that hug one another.
These colors match well with some contrast.
They make design elements feel related to each other.
Like this example.
These are just color wheel combinations.
When we make our final selection, this becomes our color palette.
Much like a painter's wooden palette,
our digital color palette is the specific selection of colors we use in our design.
Color palettes should be applied to designs strategically.
For example, our palette might include cream, red, yellow, and corn flour.
As we work these colors into our design, we might allocate one to our background,
another to our text, and another to our objects.
Here you can see the example on the right
has the most appropriate color application for this design.
When we bring photos into our design,
we can take inspiration from them to help us create color palettes like this.
We can color pick these or use some handy Canva features.
We'll show you how shortly.
Once you've landed on a color palette, take a step back to evaluate your design.
Does the selection of colors represent the message or feeling you're sending?
Use bright yellows to spread positivity or blues to share calm like these examples.
Designs are either digital, on screen, or printed like on paper.
We publish with colors in these ways.
RGB stands for Red, Green, Blue.
It's commonly used for digital publishing and is the color mode of screens.
CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key which is black.
This format is the color mode used for printing.
It's also important to keep colors accessible. This helps people see your design.
Patterns and high contrast colors
may enable more people to engage such as people with color blindness.
Now you know the basics of color theory.
How will you use color in your design?