Choosing Your Color Impact

Deciding between Monochromatic or Analogous Color Harmonies for your data visualization

Today, I discuss the color impact of choosing between a Monochromatic or an Analogous color harmony in your data visualizations. A Monochromatic color harmony combines one hue (a 100% saturated color) with various tints, tones and shades of that hue to create a color scheme. The Analogous Color Harmony combines three or more colors that are next to each to other on the Color Wheel to form a color scheme. Using the same data set, the presentation results can have different visual and perceptual impacts. These color choices can create subtle as well as obvious visual impressions about your data. Used effectively and affectively, this can enhance your practice of data visualization.

The Basics of Color Harmony

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 that help to provide common guidelines for how color hues will work together. Isaac Newton is credited with creating the Color Wheel concept when he closed the linear color spectrum into a color circle in the early 1700s. Over the centuries, artists and color…