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Color is a powerful visual force. It could make your web or print page more appealing, attract attention and clarify your message.
Whether you’re or a small business marketer who publishes content on your website, or design your own offline marketing collateral such as business proposals and documents; or a secretary who prepares Powerpoint slides or a report for your manager … harness the power of color precisely to communicate effectively and professionally.
Visual studies have proven that color attract more attention than pages without. Unlike print design, color on the monitor is free. But use it wisely. Because color creates more than visual perception. It can evoke moods and symbolically signify meaning.
The Color Wheel is a tool for understanding which colors go with what, helping you find the right ones for your design—web or print.
The Color Wheel
Wherever there’s light, there’s color. White light contains all visible colors, which form an infinite spectrum that appears in the red-to-violent sequence, like the rainbow. The color wheel represents this infinite spectrum with 12 basic hues.
Hues
These 12 hues consist of primary, secondary and tertiary colors. The three primary colors of blue, yellow and red combine to make secondary colors; which combine to make tertiary colors.
Constructed in an orderly progression, the color wheel is the range of visible light—represented by the 12 basic hues—formed into circle. It enables the user to visualize the sequence of color balance and harmony. The 12 basic hues are: Red, Red Orange, Orange, Yellow Orange, Yellow, Yellow Green, Green, Blue Green, Blue, Blue Violet, Violet, Red Violet.
Color Value
Each hue is at a level of full saturation, or brightness. There is no black or white added. When the relative amount of white or black is added to a hue, the color has lightness and darkness, called value. To show value, the color wheel has more rings: two outter for dark shades and two inner for light tints.
Color Schemes
No color stands alone. A color is always seen in the context of other colors. In fact, the effect of a color is determined by the light reflected from it, the colors that surround it; or the perspective of the person looking at it.
No one color is “good” or “bad”. Rather, it’s one part of a composition that as a whole is pleasing or not.
There are six basic color schemes.
Monochromatic: This palette has the dark, medium and light values of a single color. It has no color depth, but it provides the contrast of dark, medium and light that’s important to good design.
Analogous: These are adjacent colors. They share strong undertones which create pleasing, low-contrast harmony. Analogous palettes are rich and always easy to work with.
Complement: These are colors directly opposite of each other on the color wheel. Complementary colors are contrasting, convey energy, vigor and excitement.
Split Complement: These are colors one step either way of the complement’s own analogous colors. It’s strength is in the low-contrast beauty of analogous colors, plus the added accent of an opposite color.
Primary: The primary colors are often seen in children’s products.
Secondary: Secondary colors have a lot in common so they harmonize easily.
The 4-Step Process to Find the Perfect Colors
Color not only adds impact and dimension, it contributes significantly to the legibility, helps organization, evokes the feeling and personality of a web page or print page.
Here are the 4-step process to find the perfect colors for your design:
- Step 1: Clearly define the results you want to achieve with color.
- Step 2: Select a main, key color that reflects the needs of the project.
- Step 3: Select a color scheme based on the key color (hue).
- Step 4: Experiment and refine the scheme’s color choices in terms of the project requirements.
The Color Wheel is an indispensible tool for anyone who wants to communicate effectively, whether you’re a secretary who prepares Powerpoint slides or a report for your manager; or a small business marketer who publishes content on your website or sales page, to your offline marketing collateral such as business proposals and documents.
"FREE Special Color Guide!"
Sleekly designed, our concise 7-page special color guide contains everything you see in the article above, binded in a small size, high quality PDF document. Keep it as a handy reference whenever you need to find that perfect color for your project… just when you were about to pull your hair out!
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99 comments ↓
Great article. Your writing is great. I love color. it is my favorite element of design by far. My color theory class was my favorite in college. I hope you sell a ton of color wheels!
Dugg it and added you to my technorati faves.
-mommy zabs
Thanks Zabs for your kind words!
Well, I’m giving the color wheel away! So grab it NOW before I change my mind. ;p
Sherman
Nice article! Just signed up for your pdf.
Cheers
Thank you SEO London!
I love you work on your portfolio page.
Sherman
Great work on the Color Wheel. I have a copy of it on my desk for easy reference and use it with every design I work on. It has assisted greatly in choosing colors that work well together for maximum visibility and effect. Thank you for the efforts that you’ve put into developing a reference that is so useful.
Hi Butch,
Yes, the color wheel is indeed a very useful reference tool—for designers and non-designers alike.
I’ve a mini version, a desktop icon that sits on my Mac desktop. Whenever I wanted a quick reference, I activate the Expose to put all windows away, exposing the desktop and I see that mini color wheel.
Sherman
Thank you so much for this helpful and useful color wheel. I made it a necessity for all my designers to have it posted next to their screen somehow.
Hi Jeff,
I’m flattered. Thanks!
Sherman
As a painter I’m in love with color. I especially enjoy using compliment colors against one another to create “snap.”
You have top be careful not to create garishness in the process though. To avoid that, I ensure one of the compliments are dominant and the other is muted or lighter. That way they work together rather than both of them fighting for attention.
And you’re so right about the emotive qualities of color, especially how they subtly interact with each other. We can stimulate just the right background psychology — or not — depending on the choices. I’ve found it helps, once you have an arrangement set up, to stop analyzing and just sit and notice how you feel.
Cheers,
John
Hi John,
Thanks for your tips!
Sherman
Thank for your copy of the color wheel! Its really a great help to me. Choosing colors is not a difficult job for me anymore!
Hi Mandy, I’m glad it helps you.
I’m learning about the different values color has on everything and your color wheels are very helpful in the self educating of me. Thanks so much.
great tool! i’ll definitely keep this open whenever i work. thanks!
Colour has an amazing impact on how we view & feel about everything. Especially when designing it can be very confusing with all the different shades. The colour wheel is a great resource tool. Thanks
I really like it! But you are missing 2 color schemes- triadic and tetrad (or double complementary). Add those and I think it would be great!
Hi Heidi,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I’ll take those 2 schemes into consideration when I revise the color guide.
Sherman
Hi Sherman.
I’m a novice with color. I love and desire color. But, I would find myself latching onto the mono scheme. I’m venturing out a lot more now with the great thing COLOR. We recently moved into our somewhat dream home. We have one large orange accent wall (I think tastefully done) surrounded by white walls. We’re from
Florida but relocated to Atlanta. (I’m truly tropical). Case and point, color seem to scare me. That color wheel is really a neat tool, it soothes a lot of fears. I
would like to get my feet wet a little more with design.Your color wheel helps to make sense of what you are doing and the direction to take. Thanks Sherman.
Brenda
i actually used the advice to spruce up my makeup. i wanted to play up the green in my eyes (and minimize the brown). now i know red violet is the color choice for me.
@Brenda - You’re welcome. I’m glad you find the color wheel useful.
@Laura - Frankly, I haven’t thought of using the color wheel on makeup. But obviously it can.
Sherman
Very well presented, everyone who aspires to do any design work need this tool.
I would love to see this pushed to the next level with a little bit more practical advices on how to use these colour concepts.
Thanks,
Hi, Thank you for the colour wheel. It is great.
Is it possible to make a skin tones colour wheel?
Thanks.
Rena
Hi Sherman,
Thanks for the color guide. I have already put into use in my project and the effect looks good..
Also, I would like to say that you have a wonderful website, in terms of colours, information etc. All it looks so interesting to me and makes me want to know more.. You are great!
@Stephane - Thanks for your suggestion. I’ll post some advice on how to use these colour concepts when I get the time as I’ve been very busy.
@Rena - I do not know of any skin tone color wheel. But I guess when you use the light tints of the color wheel you might find colors to match skin tones.
@Felicia - Thanks for your compliments!
This is what i was looking for i am doing renos on our home and needed help deciding what color would look best with the adjoining room’s colors. Thanks.
Rebecca
Hi,
I am looking for a color wheel or even a chart for flesh tones, there doesn’t seem to be many any resources on the web for this. Your site comes right up on a google search for “Flesh Tone Color Wheel”. I need it for a current web design project.
Thanks for providing a free color wheel! I used it to color my Bible. My memory works much better if I associate colors with words or phrases and I was able to memorize a whole chapter. Also I’ll use it to help me paint my room! It’s fun just to look at to. Thanks again!
Thank you for the Color Wheel, it has been very helpful in selecting a new color scheme.
Make more…make some in gradient, neutrals, brights, etc.
Thanks A Million
I, too, am doing renovations on houses. Not only my own, but ones we purchase and remodel for resale or rental. I watch almost every design show available and am quite aware of how color influences the world around us. Although I have a natural “gift” for color choices, this is an invaluable tool I have been searching for quite some time. Thank you everso much for making it available. You are a gift to the craft!
Thanks for the color wheel. It’s awesome and will help me ALOT!!! Thanks again
The developers at our company need some assistance in coming up with colors for our new software product. The color wheel will help them see which colors work best together, so they can design accordingly. Thank you.
I’m starting a career in Interior Design and this tool helps my clients see the potential color has. After seeing all the colors on the color wheel, they are more willing to explore the possibility of color instead of going with the norm. Great effort on the pdf. Thank you so much!!!
Very very good advice. Thank you
Hi Sherman
The colour wheel information is a great aid/prompt for me as I teach flower arranging and this term we are looking into colour.
Thanks
Sue
I have been looking for a good color wheel for a while and the paint store suggested I try the web, so glad I did! This has helped as my other half is color challanged, now I have a tool to show him what I plan to do before I commit and scare him…
thank you, it was very helpful. I needed a guide for complimentary colors. Great pdf!
Colour wheel will be a great help, just the inspiration I needed. Thanks.
I used your colorwheel and your nice, succinct definition of complimentary colors with my 4th graders. We did a cross-curricular lesson of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax studying reading, science, and art. We discussed how Seuss uses bright, complimentary colors to create energy. $th grade standards in CA state that one should teach about complimentary colors. Your very handy and very free color guide came in so handy when the kids were making their own brightly colored truffula trees. I know they came out even better after our discussion of complimentary colors. Many times before choosing their colors, a student would walk to the whiteboard and trace across the wheel to a color’s complimentary color. Thank you for your invaluable resource!
very usefull. Thank you.
I found your colour wheel very informative and have shown these to my flower arranging colleagues. Thank you it has been and will continue to be most useful
Color Wheel was helpful however; I seen something at Walmart while ago…. Dont know if you could incorporate it into yours or not…. The wheel had a center that could spin & you could see different shades of the colors. That was a pretty cool idea! Thanks again!!
love this! we are moving into a new old house and everything needs to be changed! i am so excited to really add the color i’ve always wanted in every room of the house! i only wish i had a good color printer to print the pages! thanks again for sharing! i’m learning lots!
It is great and it answered all the questions I had about mixing and yes it will be a great help to anyone.
Thanks
Loved it!!! It helped me decide which color to paint my living room. I never considered the split contrast technique before.
Thank you so very much! Just like others before me I was looking for ideas to help me paint an office that is already painted two different colors, oops.. three! This helped me choose the perfect fourth, ha ha. The only way to improve it would be for you to add a video.. (just joking) It’s Great. Thanks!
Thank you very much, is great to find something so helpful. You have done fantastic job.
I teach The Nafas Diploma, I thought the discs of colour schemes excellent visual aids. I would have liked a blank one , so that students could paint their own, students learn more by doing.
Thank You
Edena
It is great and it will be a great help to me in colouring different activities/schedules of work performing.
Thanks
Great tool, my daughter has just started an interior design course and she finds it very helpful. I think having it spin to show different shades of the colour would be pretty cool.
This was very helpful in designing and mixing basic colors, i wish you had some information about textures as well and may be a complete concise guide to designing anything . Thanks so much for all the information you have put together.
I am finding the color wheel to be very useful.
I make knitted felted bags and wanted the color wheel so I can choose colors that will give more eye appeal to the designs. The color wheel will definitely help with choices.
It is just what I needed and I don’t know how you could improve it. Looks perfect to me.
Thank you for making it available.
Tiggs
The color wheel pages are just what I was looking for and will be very helpful to me designing latch hook rugs.
I wanted a tool to communicate with local Shan weavers on the Thai-Myrnmar border about color combos and choices. Your color guide filled the bill perfectly.
The color wheel and color information really is free and fantastic! Thank you for offering this resource. I had no idea what a color wheel was or how to use one. Now I know this and much more! Everyone in my fashion/wardrobe class is interested in having a copy of this color wheel too. It is a big hit!
Thank you!
Your color wheel and description of the use of color is simple and clear; two things I was looking for. Thank you for providing this extremely helpful tool. Thank you so very much!
Thank you! It is just what I needed as a beginner in painting. I do not see anything I would want changed.
You, your information, and color wheel are all inspiring!
Thank you!!
Yes, Sir; Thank you for asking. My wife needed help on which garments to bring out of the back of the store to put on display. Her manager had told her not to bring out any that clashed. She told my wife to follow the color wheel. Hence, we came to your website via google… Thanks again, Kelvin
EXCELLENT color wheel - I finally understand where the browns come into it (for instance), where I didn’t before. Thanks so much!
I would love to see the rings specified, tone, tint, mute, shade. Thanks
Thank you very much for your color wheel that will help me to do my job well! It helps me to save my time of creating new products.
That’s cool!!!!
Thanks for this very helpful guide but if possible to create the different tone that can get along (e.g. mustard&black green …). That would be much appreciate and fun, I think so.
Yes, I found the color wheel information very helpful, thank you.
Color wheel was very helpful.
Thanks
I’m designing a site and it has become helpful…thanks!
Thanks for sharing
Great articles and looking forward to hear more from you.
Take care!
Thanks for the Color Wheel…I am getting a lot of use out of it, and out of your site in general!
Thanks again,
Carol
Thank you for sharing! Great articles and am looking forward to see more from you.
Thank you for sharing! Great articles, I really appreciate how simple and easy you make it to read and understanding. I am looking forward to see more from you.
This was the perfect document for what I need…
Very helpful
Sherman –
Love the Color Wheel — with one exception:
It would be SO MUCH BETTER for my studio if it were hard copy, to put up over my work station, not needing to have it on the computer screen. That would make it perfect. Any chance of that coming about — maybe in the fullness of time?
Cheers,
Anthony
Love the colour wheel - I had no idea that such a thing excisted - I am now finding it so much easier to match up my papers to my photos for eye catching appeal for all my scrapbooking pages. Thank you Sherman you are a marvel.
Thanks for the colour wheel. Its just what I need to kickstart my design concepts.
Than you again Sherman for the wonderful color wheel, you did a fantastic job, beautiful presentation and design. Most useful for my purpose in color consultation. Love it! you are brilliant like your colors!
I am a quilter so I am going to use the color wheel to help me develop the color schemes of my quilts. I really like the way you have demonstrated the different values of each color and suggested how to combine the split complement with accent color. Nice job!
It is most helpful. Thank you for your assistance. I have been struggling a bit regarding colors for our master bedroom/bath and your color wheel helped me define what we would need. Thanks again!
Thank you very much for the color wheel. It will help me to better understand color theory. I plan on doing some redecorating (not professionally) and was having a hard time getting different colors to match correctly. This is so much easier than paint chips and gives more options. A great tool!
I’m a quilter and a long arm machine quilter. I plan to use the color wheel for quilt top color schemes as well as quilting thread color schemes. I’ve printed off the color wheel and hung it on the wall in my studio in a prominent place. Thanks for making this available.
Thank you for the colour wheel. I am beginning a course in interior design soon and the colour wheel will be a great help.
The color wheel and information was most helpful. Sometimes when you do not use the rules often you forget them and once you see the wheel (s) it all comes back. I have made a copy and laminated it for future reference. I am sure I will enter the site again. Thanks for the info
Great color wheel! I am trying to decorate my house and I finally found the right wheel. Thank you.
Thanks for the guide. I really need this when I am starting a project. An excellent visual to “FEEL” where you are going
Thank you.
I am using the colour wheel to assist individuals who are looking for work. Often we underestimate the importance of colour co ordination when preparing for an interview and self marketing to employers.
I am a teacher and your colour wheel was most useful for my class!! Thank You for making my job easier.
Thanks for the color wheel. very helpful.
The only feedback would be to add a few basic examples.
Thanks!
I am use the chart to pick colors for embroidery. It has been most useful.
Thanks for the wheel. I am currently renovating/redecorating our home and the wheel is going to come in very handy! I’ve always had a picture in my mind of the colors I want, but when it comes to accents/complementing colors it starts to get confusing. This is going to be a great help!
was doing a project with shade of brown,it gave me a insight into the color what i was looking for,very helpful thanks
Thanks, it’s been very helpful as a resource for me!
I would love to purchase this guide you sent in email. Do you have hard copies to mail out.
Thanks so much for the color wheel. I was undecided as to what colors to accent my living room with and the wheel helped me pick more than one. Thanks again!
Thank you for the color guide! I am taking a color theory class right now and it is of great use not only to me, but to my professor as well! Keep up with the interesting ideas!
Your guide was so helpful thank you. I painted one as a first year assignment in my design course and I must confess I had no clue what I was doing even though I got the colours right and got a decent mark for it. I didn’t even know what the wheel represented until I read your guide. Funny… I only pulled it out from where I dumped it after reading your guide and it all suddenly made sense. And I must say, it has really helped me with my latest colour analysis assignment in my Image Consulting Class.
Thank you once again.
the chart was a very good tool for my work beibg an upcoming designer. it helps me understand blends and how to harmonise. thank you sooooooo ver much
Thank you so much. NOW I understand it. It is helping me enormously with my flower arranging course. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for the colour wheel, just started a course, found it very useful, didn’t know about the split complement side of it
How kind of you to have made The Color Wheel available free. I have printed it and will be using it a great deal as I am an art student and your color wheel has made it already so much easier to understand the teriary colors and the other offshoots of the color wheel.
It will be traveling with me to every art lesson that I attend and it will be by my side whenever I paint.
Thank you very much indeed.
The information and structure of the colour wheel is so clear and concise and it is helping my husband and I to see the big picture as we are undergoing a room by room update in our house. It helps to see how the colours relate to each other and gives us a lot of reassurance about how colours work together as we tackle our beige rooms, especially ceiling colours. Thank you again so much for making this valuable resource free!!!
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