Color

The colors you choose for your badges (and for every design!) should never be arbitrary in the final version.

Make your color palette communicate with purpose. (White Space pg. 131)

Consider not only what colors create harmony and impact, but also what colors might evoke particular feelings and associations in the minds of your audience members.

color symbolism

In marketing, there is endless research on how color affects consumer choices. One study found that “85% of consumers base buying decisions on color.” Needless to say, color is a crucial concept for visual communicators. However, it is also our responsibility to consider the ways that color is socially constructed to mean different things to different cultures. For example, White Space mentions that white is the color of mourning in some Asian countries. We could also think critically about the ethics of black’s association with evil and mystery, particularly in contrast to white’s connotation of purity and innocence. Recall that Darren Wilson testified that Michael Brown looked like a “demon.”  And what about pink’s association with weakness and femininity? Sometimes your designs might reflect cultural norms, but make sure it is a conscious choice and not a caustic stereotype guiding you.

Color medium

You are designing images for the web and not for print. Which color profile do you use?

color harmony

What color profile did this designer choose? In other words, what is the relationship between the colors in her design?

Help with harmony:

• Design Seeds (color schemes mostly from nature)
• Paletton (click Preview > Default with Text to show what text would look like on top of a background color)
• Adobe Color CC !!!

Color can provide unity and coherence in the design of your badges. Whether you choose an earthy palette, a high-contrast high-saturation scheme, or more subdued and simple tones, you should have a plan and a purpose in your color choices.

Today in class:

Use Adobe Color CC to create a few color themes that you might want to use for your badges mini project. Make sure you are signed in using the Adobe ID that you created when you purchased Creative Cloud. If you don’t have an Adobe ID, you can create one and use Adobe Color for free.

• Try uploading a picture to Adobe Color. Hopefully you have been adding design ideas to Pinterest or Tumblr, so you could find color inspiration there.
• In Adobe Color, observe the differences between the color rules. The color rules represent different principles of color theory that you read about in White Space.
• You can change the value of a base color, but all the other colors will darken or lighten with it.
• Once you have a color palette you like, save it as a theme. It will sync with your Illustrator (if you bought Creative Cloud) and be automagically available for use from the Color Themes panel in Illustrator CC. If you did not purchase Adobe CC, you can download the color theme as an .ase file (or swatch) and then import it into Illustrator later.