Color scheme

From WikID

Color wheel, Johannes Itten (1961).

In color theory, a color scheme is the choice of colors used in design for a range of media.

Color schemes are used to create style and appeal. Colors that create an aesthetic feeling when used together will commonly accompany each other in color schemes. A basic color scheme will use two colors that look appealing together. More advanced color schemes involve several colors in combination, usually based around a single color. Color schemes can also contain different shades of a single color. Color schemes are often described in terms of logical combinations of colors on a Color wheel.

Color scheme design tool

Link to a web based color scheme design tool. This tool enables you to create color schemes on a consistent way. Various types of schemes on the color wheel are possible. The hue, saturation and contrasts of the chosen colors can be adapted independently.

The tool gives two examples of the chosen scheme a dark and a light version, in the form of a basic web layout. However, this tool is perfect for designing layouts of all kinds. By the color codes the web based design tool provides, you can implement the scheme in any product design, report layout or website.

Example

main screen of the color scheme design tool.

Saturation, brightness and contrast settings.

Hexadecimal color codes.

In the main screen of the tool, a primary color can be chosen. Other, secundary colors of the scheme are related to this color. Different types of schemes have different numbers of secundary colors. For example, a 'complementary' scheme has two colors, a primary and a secundary. A 'tetrad' scheme has four colors, a primary color and three secundary colors.

The chosen scheme can be adjusted in brightness, saturation and contrast, all to your personal needs. Finally, the colors can be viewed in hexadecimal color codes, which can be used as input in graphic software.

For example, the Color scheme design tool has been used to generate the complementary colors used in the 'example' section of this wikid article. The color codes can be found in the picture on the bottom, the center column of colors is used here.The main color is chosen by the user, in our case orange, and the two other colors are given by the web based design tool. Within a wikid article you can use the hexadecimal color codes. However, the hexadecimal codes will be converted automatically to decimal codes. We think the web based design tool can help you to quickly combine colors, as in this wikid section is shown. By giving a quick overview, the tool helps the designer to make a quick decision and provide alternatives. By using the color scheme design tool, we think you can make a quick combination of colors based on rationality, resulting in a visually comfortable layout.