Something neutral, something bright, something earthy, something cheerful - there'll no doubt be a adjective in there somewhere when you're trying to choose a colour for something or somewhere. And as it’s unlikely that this one colour will be isolated from all others, everything starts to get a bit tricky when you start to think about whether this goes with that.
When you put one colour with another something happens to them. They either give each other a hug or a slap. It’s caused by some sort of wizardry that seems a mystery. This is the point where decisions become difficult and confidence levels diminish.
So where do you start?
What you need to do is choose a palette of colours that play together in a way that suits what you want to achieve. You need to go through the colours and work out the ones that are going to get along together, or the ones that you’ll need to separate because they’ll fight like kids in a car seat. You might want to select a bunch that get on, but then to stop life getting too dull you need to throw one into the mix that pokes the others to spice them up a bit. I outlined some basic theories on colour in my first blog post in this series, (here) so if you’ve forgotten those, it’s worth having a little look to refresh your memory about the terminology. What I’ll outline here though, are the main types of colour palette. This is your starting point for putting your colours together. Bear in mind that the examples all use the true, bright colours (hues) from the colour wheel, when it is likely you might want colours that are a little less intense - probably, for an interior - mostly tints (lighter shades) of a colour, but you follow the same method as each tint will originate from a base colour or colours.
The Notes part 2: colour palettes
If you want subtle, harmonious and soothing –
Monochromatic palettes use a single colour (hue) but combine different tints, shades and tones of it (ie lighter and darker versions). I love the designs of Piccolo seed packets! This one demonstrates a monochromatic blue palette beautifully.
Faux monochromatic palettes work in the same way as monochromatic palettes, but use more than one colour to add depth and a bit more interest. These colours will be next to each other on the colour wheel (analogous). This seed package, also from Piccolo seeds, combines green and pale blue.
For an Analogous palette, choose a narrow palette of three colours based around one area of the colour wheel. One will be a primary colour, eg blue, one a secondary, eg violet, one a tertiary eg blue - violet
If you want energetic, to bring attention to something, or create high contrast -
Complementary colour palettes use colours opposite each other in the colour wheel – the ones that fight each other, for example violet and yellow.
Create a split complimentary palette by choosing a main colour, then go to the colour directly opposite it in the colour wheel and select the two colours from either side of it. For example, if the main colour is violet, go opposite to yellow, then choose the yellow green and yellow orange from either side.
Triadic palettes contain three colours equally placed around the colour wheel. eg orange, blue, green – like a beautiful autumn day. The colours have high contrast, but are the same tone (one isn't any lighter or darker than the others).
Square tetradic palettes use four equidistant colours from the colour wheel (they will be in a square)
Tetradic palettes (or rectangle) are slightly more subtle than a square palettes
Some of these palettes use the same tints, tones and shades (lighter and darker) of one or a combination of colours, some use different tints, tones and shades of combinations of colours. Looking at tints, shades and tones is where the journey goes next - I’ll delve deeper into what I’ve been learning about this as a way of manipulating the effects of colour in the next post!