Tutorial: Color theme
Level: Intermediate
Date: July 2010
Choosing a color theme is fun but if you ask me, its just as important as having a good letter style.
Sticking to the safety zone
This is a vast topic to discuss so right from the top I'd like to cut this down to finding a good color theme for your graffiti piece. Disregarding your background color, surface and characters you might have.
Key Colors
A piece could look great with 10-15 colors but it's very rare. The ones that will stick in your memory bank are the ones that use 4-5 colors. Often 3 colors of the same color cast but with varied shades and 2 colors that contrast those. I'm not counting Black or White because those counts as base colors and works with everything.
- 4-6 Colors max.
- 3 Shaded from the same color cast.
- 2 Contrasted colors.
Samples
Product design
If you want inspiration for your color theme you should go check the colors and product design on your toothbrush or shampoo bottle. Industrial product design often have a very very thoughout color theme. You wont find the same stylistic colors on your computer, TV or sofa and the reason for that is because
it's designed to melt in to your surrowning stuff. The design on your sofa is not suppose to take the upper hand as the center of attention while your shampoo bottle want to stick out from the rest in the super market.
You can also browse color themes or make your own on Adobe Kuler: http://kuler.adobe.com/
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