Good Design is Pretty

Hi, it's me again! I was thinking again about what makes good design and what makes bad design and one thing I definitely think makes a design good is for it to be pretty! It should be aesthetically pleasant with complementary color schemes that do not distract or clash.

COLOR SCHEMES

Anybody who's used Invision Studio knows that each color has a separate HEX and RGB code unique to it that indicates it specific hue and shade. It's always preceded by the pound sign (#) and then a string of a combination of six seemingly randomly selected capital letters and numbers. However, they are NOT randomly selected, actually the code indicates a very specific sequence of colors and hues that indicate where EXACTLY on the color spectrum the exact HUE you want falls. If you search for color theory online you will go down a rabbit hole and you will never find your way back out again but basically use the identification numbers because they make everything so much easier!!

One way the identification numbers make things easier is that when you are matching your color schemes in your artbook/canvas or whatever you're working on using your dropper tool, you can also find the exact color you are looking for by typing in the # identification number because it is a universally understood and referenced code. COLOR THEORY IS AMAZING Not sure what colors you should use together when you are making or designing your website? Not to fear! There are lots of resources at your disposal. For example, I found this instagram account recently that only posts palettes for website design - usually 4 or 5 complementary or contrasting colors that would look good together in a website design and their # identification numbers so you can copy and paste them and plug them right into the program you're using. (This is great for using screens in invision because invision relies heavily on inputting the # identification numbers for colors and other manual input such as dimensions for sizing, etc. but that's also part of it's charm - its precision).

Websites like these will provide you with a text color, a background color, one accent color (or a color that adds "pop"), and another lighter version of the first background color, etc.

They will use this recipe over and over with different color combinations to provide you with different color combinations depending upon what you are looking for in your design. Example here: https://visme.co/blog/website-color-schemes/

The fun thing about color theory is that they can be applied everywhere - to art design (which I use a lot in my paintings, check out my instagram!! https://www.instagram.com/sarahglanndraws/), and wardrobe - I love to see an orange tie, crisp white shirt, with a navy suit!

Personally I think orange and yellow make great accent colors for dark backgrounds like black and navy blue. A nice light gray or crisp white is always attractive with this. This type of color scheme is always the most attractive to me as it is gender neutral, timeless, and can be either professional or fun.

COMPLIMENTARY AND CONTRASTING COLORS

Remember middle school art class when you learned about the color wheel??

It is so pretty!!

Obviously, this isn't the actual color wheel, but it shows the colors where they would be in the wheel, and it's a FLOWER, so I'm using it.

The color wheel shows which colors are contrasting to one another by placing them directly across from one another on the wheel - green-pink, blue-orange, and orange-purple, are all good examples of contrasting colors. They are often also warm and cool colors paired together. Contrasting colors look best when used as accents. Accent colors highlight and beautify the page but do not indicate important or large portions of the page itself. This is because if you were to look at something with too much contrasting color it would distract the eye. Sometimes it can be so alarming that people will leave the page before even viewing its product or goal!

Complimentary colors look good next to each other. They are usually warm colors paired with other warm colors or cool colors paired with cool colors. Green-blue, purple-pink, red-orange, are examples of complimenting color pairs. The background for the web page and the foreground for the text can be complimenting colors without being distracting like pleasant greys and dark blues or light creams and eggshells.

It's important to understand color, which as an artist you have to!! But designing anything you should understand how it impacts accessibility, usability, and other real issues not just related to whether it is pretty. Although honestly, don't downplay pretty as an important factor in whether people will spend time on a website, I mean amazon's layout is amazing and I have sunk so much of my time browsing for deals on there...

Accessibility

The color scheme should also be selected with a consideration for people with different variations of color-blindness (red-green, etc.) because they may not be able to see red text on a pink screen (although like, ew) but it's cool because there are websites you can use to test your site for RG Colorblindness inaccessibility (or pink-red ugly-color-combo obsession you should reconsider anyway!): https://www.toptal.com/designers/colorfilter.

In the end, what's good for everyone, is good for everyone <3.