What are Color Schemes? | Significance, Types and More

Selecting colors for a design is an important part of the design process. By selecting the right colors we can increase the user’s interest in the design and attract them to look more. Having the right set of colors selected from a Color Scheme can help in attracting the right customers for the specific brand. In this article, we will take a look at various Color Schemes that are used to select colors.

Color Schemes

First, let’s take a brief look at Color Theory.

What is Color Theory?

Color Theory is the concept used to select colors to evoke certain emotions in the viewer. Using certain color combinations that go well together helps attract new viewers and turn them into customers. This is useful to create a unique brand identity that can be identified by those colors. Brands gain more recognition this way which gives them a competitive advantage. Using colors is more than just making the design look good rather it can heavily impact user engagement. Colors being on a certain side of the spectrum or using different tones and shades of color impacts the emotions evoked by it.

Significance of Color Wheel in Color Theory

To understand color theory’s basic concepts, you can use the Color Wheel. This tool can be used to describe the relationships between colors in a simplified, schematic way. It’s making it easier to understand colors and their relationship to each other, like how they’re related to each other and how two or three colors can be combined. The Color Wheel is made with the formation of primary, secondary and tertiary colors.

Color Wheel

1. Primary Colors

The primary are those color which can not be formed by mixing any two or three . The three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. These colors can be mixed to get secondary and tertiary colors.

Primary Colors

2. Secondary Colors: 

Secondary colors are the colors that are formed by mixing any two primary colors. By mixing primary colors we can get Orange, Green, and Purple.

Secondary Colors

3. Tertiary Colors: 

A primary color and a secondary color are mixed to generate tertiary colors such as magenta, vermillion, violet and teal.

Tertiary Colors

Color Schemes

This is an approach of selecing colors. It is also known as Color Harmony. There are 7 major types of Color Schemes:

1. Monochromatic Color Schemes

Containing different hues, saturations, and tints of the same color.

Monochrome

2. Complementary Color Schemes

Two colors from opposite sides of the color wheel are the base of complementary color schemes.

Complementary

3. Analogous Color Schemes

On the color wheel, adjacent colors are referred to as analogous colors. This type of palette can look very beautiful because the colors fit together so nicely.

Analogous

4. Triadic Color Schemes

Triadic Scheme is made by using three colors that are at the points of a triangle drawn within the color wheel.

Triad

5. Split Complementary(Compound) Color Schemes

Split complementary color palettes are similar to complementary palettes but with a third color which is next one of the complementary colors on the color wheel.

Split Complementary

6. Square Color Schemes

There are 4 colors in this scheme one key color. Having 3 equidistant colors from the key color gives two complementary pairs which forms a square.

Square

7. Tetradic Color Schemes

Formed by 2 complementary pairs equidistant to each other making a rectangular shape.

Tetradic

Conclusion

Using the right colors can help make the design look wonderful and also attract a lot of viewership. Selecting a the specific key color that matches with the brand needs and then choosing colors that go well with that key color with the help of the color schemes is a very essential part of the designing process. Using the color schemes can enhance the user’s impression about the design and the Brand.

What are Color Schemes? | Picking Out the Best Color from Color Palette – FAQs

Why are color schemes important?

Color schemes play a crucial role in conveying messages, evoking emotions, and establishing visual hierarchy in design. They help create harmony and balance within a composition.

What is the purpose of using color schemes?

Color schemes serve to create visual harmony, convey brand identity, and evoke specific emotions and establish hierarchy, improve readability, and enhance user experience in design.

What is a two color scheme called?

Complementary color schemes are called the two color scheme that are opposite to each other on the color wheel.

What is the difference between theme and color scheme?

A theme can be appliedonnly once at a time because it styles the whole application while the color scheme does not.