How to Pick the Right Colors for a Design
Color is vital to the life and feeling of a design
Color is beautiful. It provides depth and sparks emotions. Color provides so much more than a look or style. It provides feeling to a design. There is a psychology to each specific color. As a designer, you may not realize, but the colors you pick for your product have a deep impact on your users. Colors capture the attention of the user, they can promote certain feelings or thoughts, and they can leave a mark on the user. The emotions you want your product to promote should definitely be considered when selecting a color(s) for your product.
Why is color choice important?
Before you pick any color for a product, it is vital to understand why color is important. Sure, this was covered a tad in the intro, but let's dive in a little more. Color psychology is based on the mental and emotional effects colors have on people in all aspects of life. Although these effects may be subjective and vary in peoples and cultures, the general principles should still be taken into consideration.
For example, when looking at a color for a design, you should figure out the underlying effects that color may have. Like the color red; red can incite feelings of love, passion, and intensity. While the color green can promote feelings of health, reliability, and harmony. All colors have effects such as these.
As a designer, you should be asking yourself, “Visually, how do I want this product to make my users feel?” Like the purple and grey Super Nintendo. Purple promotes a feeling of respect and royalty, and gray has a timeless sense about it. With these colors, the Super Nintendo looks like an important and enduring product. Or even the very green color used here on Medium.com. Green has a feeling of growth and nourishment. While this can be associated with food and health, it can be associated with the gaining of knowledge. Yes, these may all be subjective, but they should be taken into account. Color has meaning, and the thoughtful choice of color can impact your users.
What is the right color?
Again, as a designer, you should be asking yourself how you want your product to make people feel from a visual standpoint. With this, you’ll want to study what colors promote the feelings that you want your product to invoke.
For example, if you are building a brand for an insurance company, you may want to consider blue colors; since blue has a psychological property of trust.
Another example, if you are trying to create a minimal site, you may want to focus on using neutral colors like black, white, and grey. Not only do they simply work well in that style, but all those colors have properties of balance and neutrality; which are some of the main building blocks of minimalist design.
With an understanding of the why and what, how do we implement colors into a design?
How to pick the right color?
Adobe Color Wheel is a wonderful tool that can help any designer pick the right colors for their design. It’s a free app, with only a sign up required. From there, you can pick any color, and the color wheel does the rest for you. You can use different color schemes to find colors that work with each other; from monochromatic, shades, compound, etc.
I have used this tool in many of my designs. From site prototypes, Youtube thumbnails, and more. With the color wheel, you can access the RGB or HEX codes and apply them to various programs; or, if you have Adobe programs, you can sync your color palettes right in.
What to do after the right color is selected?
Although you may think your color is right, your target audience may not. Testing can go a long way. Even if it is just a simple survey as to what potential users may think of the color; or simply recording their initial reactions/feelings to the product. You want your product to be used, right? So, testing it is important! Even the color. Color is likely to be the most remembered thing about a product, and the color will directly affect the branding of your product.
When all is said and done?
Color, despite how much a designer or user notices, has a deep impact on products. With this being said, it is so important to pick the most precise color for the feeling and emotion that you want your product to portray. Yes, it may seem like a minor or small detail, but careful selection of color can do volumes for any design. With an understanding of color psychology and how to pick the right color for specific products, you will have that much more of an edge as a designer.
Daniel Sanderson is a student in the Digital Media program at Utah Valley University, Orem Utah, studying Interaction & Design. The following article relates to the client web project in the (DGM 2271 Course) and representative of the skills learned.
