BASIC COLORS PRINCIPLES OF A GOOD DESIGN
The value of colours in a design may seem insubstantial, but based on research, people assess your product in less than 90 seconds and up to 90% of this time is influenced by the colours they see. An article also stressed the importance of colours, revealing that about 85% of the consumers buy based on colour. This means choosing the right colours for your product is almost as important as the functionality of the product. If you want to learn about basic principles and tips on picking your colours, you’re on the right article. Moyo, Tomiiide, Pascal, and Kay, our seasoned UI/UX engineers share insights and knowledge about colours.
COLOUR SATURATION
Saturation is the density of a color — Moyo
Moyo explained saturation as the intensity and depth of colour. The deeper the colour, the more saturated it is. A less saturated colour means it is lighter.
COLOUR CONTRAST
Colour contrast is the sharp difference between colours — Moyo
A wrong colour contrast would be repulsive to its user — Kay
Colour contrast can be defined as a distinct difference between colours. Contrast helps to showcase the important aspects of your design.
“If you want people to notice a ball in a green field, paint it black”. — Kay
You use contrast to draw the attention of your user to specific features of your design.
COLOUR HARMONY
Colour harmony is the arrangement of colours attractively and aesthetically — Moyo
Design is either harmonized or a colour riot — Kay
A harmonized colour would feel very pleasing and attractive whereas a non-harmonizing colour would feel very repulsive, chaotic and a turnoff.
HOW TO HARMONIZE A COLOR
A way to achieve harmonization is to use one colour but several values and saturation — Kay
You can learn about colour harmony from nature — Moyo
When in doubt, don’t be afraid to use a colour wheel! — Moyo
One of the best ways to seek inspiration on how to harmonize colours is from nature.
From the rainbow colour of the sky to the fire colour of the volcano to the green of the forest, nature is the best teacher to learn from.
Another way to find harmonizing and complementing colours is to use a colour generator.
COLOUR PSYCHOLOGY
There’s always a colour you can relate a situation or an experience you’re designing for to — Pascal
Colour psychology is the study of how colours influence human behaviours. People respond to different colours in different ways owing to their age, sex and societal upbringing. For instance, in western culture, white means purity and chastity but white in Asian culture means bad omen and death. Red can portray luxury, attractiveness, food but also danger. You need to understand this to choose the appropriate colour that would convey the right message and mood to your users.
There’s a colour that would relate a mood or an experience. — Pascal and Tomiide
Colours are generally classified as warm and cool colours. Warm colours are red, orange, yellow and brown. These colours are associated with daylight or sunlight and can reflect energy and passion.
Cool colours, on the other hand, are blue, green and purple. They are associated with calmness and relaxation.
DESSERTS
A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing more to remove — Kay inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
A designer knows his work has been perfected when there’s nothing else to remove for the design. As a designer, your work is perfect when removing anything would change its message.
It’s important to pick your colours before you design — Tomiiide
There are rules on the number of colours to pick when choosing your colours, one of the most common is the 60–30–10 rule. This rule advocates picking three colours for your design. The first should be the dominant colour making up about 60% of your colour, the second colour is a secondary would take up 30% while the last would be as an accent and would take 10% of your colour.
How much is more depends on the story you tell — Moyo
Experts advocate for simplicity in design. But the story you tell with your design should determine the number of colours you should use.
One of the best ways to get better at working with colour is to practice and practice until you get better. Although there are rules to make a better designer, you can adopt daring designers who broke the rules and yet produced a fabulous design.
Here’s the final tip, “Know the rules to break them ;)”
This simple article is basically about colours, you should read about typeface here.
