Adjacent to Each Other

Applying the Analogous Color Harmony to data visualizations

The Analogous Color Harmony refers to selecting colors that are next to each other on the Color Wheel. This harmony is one of the easiest to create and one of the easiest to fail color deficiency tests. It can especially be difficult for someone with normal color vision to differentiate between two colors that are adjacent on the color wheel. A color deficiency can add to the challenge of distinguishing between such adjacent color. In this writing, I will discuss how Adobe Color can be used to create effective Analogous color harmonies, that pass color deficiency tests, for your data visualizations. I also show how some of ColorBrewer’s Multi-Hue Sequential color schemes turn out to be Analogous Color Harmonies. Finally, I demonstrate a data visualization example where an adjacent Analogous color theme would be preferred over a logically ordered Multi-Hue Sequential color scheme.

Reviewing Analogous Color Harmony Concepts

As discussed previously in my Colorizing a Visualization writing, Color Harmony is the process of choosing colors on a Color Wheel that work well together in the composition of an image. Similar to concepts in music, these harmonies are based around color combinations on the Color Wheel. They provide common…