Building a Color Palette for your Dashboards
Before you start to design a dashboard, it is very important to build a color palette.
First things first- Why do we need a color palette?
Color plays a major role in data visualization. It focuses attention on the dashboard or report. A color palette is a collection of colors to be used while designing. Having a well-researched color palette before designing the dashboard will save a lot of time and energy.
When you are building dashboards or reports for a brand, make sure to use their brand colors.
Below are the steps that I follow while choosing a color palette:
Step1: Depending on the provided dataset, I pick out a base color according to the color emotion guide. This color acts as a base that I further use to build up my palette. The color selection may vary from person to person depending on their understanding of the dataset and on their perception. Just make sure that the color aligns with the visualization goals.
For example, I used hues of yellow and orange for a dashboard titled “USA’s Favorite Travel Destinations” because I relate vacations to happiness, freedom, energy, and excitement.
Step 2: Now that I have a base color ready, It’s time to select a color scheme. Sometimes you might have to build up the scheme from scratch and sometimes you can use the brand colors. Monologous color schemes are my favorite. Pick out colors according to the schemes used.
Step 4: Next, I compile my color palette and find out the exact HEX codes or RGB values of the selected colors. Then I customize the Power-BI theme according to the colors chosen to make it easier while designing the visualization.
Below are some useful websites where you can find color palettes:
1. Colorhexa (My favorite)
2. Coolors
3. Colormind
4. Paletton
5. Mycolorspace
6. Canva
Below are some useful websites where you can upload images to pick colors:
1. Coolors
2. Canva
3. Imagecolorpicker
4. Hexcolor
It might look hard. But trust me, once you start practicing, it will get a lot easier. For days when you feel clueless, just use a black and white color palette as I did here.
Happy learning! Don’t forget to tap the clap button a couple of times to support me and save the article for future reference. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Whatever you do, put your heart into it and success will follow.
