Determining Color Schemes

When trying to come up with a color scheme for your event the easiest way to do that is to use the color wheel. With this you can get a visual idea of what you can work with.

Traditionally, the color wheel consists of your primary colors: red, blue and yellow, and all other colors are a mix of these three. The wheel has the purest hues of the colors, all others are tints (lighter hues) and tones (various darker shades of the color). An example: you could go with a soft sage (hue) or a hunter green (tint) which is darker. Their value is made by adding white, black or blackish brown (umber) to make the pure color lighter or darker.
   Basically, there are three ways to use the wheel that will give you co-ordinating colors: complementary, analogous or in a triad.

Complementary colors are that are opposite on the color wheel. When you put them together it makes the other color stand out.

Analogous colors are those that lie on either side of your chosen color (if you choose purple you will see blue and pink on either side of the wheel). They go together because they share a common hue.

Warm colors are the half of the color wheel from yellow-green to red. These colors are more vibrant and stand out. The are associated with the sun (yellow) and fire (orange). In fact, if you were to put red and purple together (from both ends of the spectrum) your eyes won’t be able to focus them at the same time and puts a strain on them.  You will want to add a bit of warmth from a cool color to help you round out the color scheme.

The Cool colors generally are those that recede. An example: a small room will appear larger if you use a cool color on the walls – like blue, green or purple. A cool theme will need at least dabs of warmth to pick up the beat.

Triads are a combination of three colors equally spaced on the wheel – like yellow, orange, purple and blue/green.

Since green and purple can be considered warm or cool, in some context, they often are considered neutrals that can go with any color.

Don’t forget to balance your colors. While light and medium values work well together they can get a bit boring, so add a darker value. Example: light blue and light yellow are great, but add a bit of navy blue or cobalt blue to give it depth.