Mastering Color Psychology and Schemes for Effective Design

you're about to watch the most important  information I've ever said on this channel   relating to color I've actually split the video  up to different sections for easier viewing and   the first section is a kind of before and after  section where we add color To Mediocre design  

templates so follow along and have yourself a  great day and here is the first design which   is based around a gym or exercise poster now as  you can see this poster is in grayscale at the   moment and we want to add some color now I want  you to think of the emotion of the design itself  

and what it's trying to convey and what's the  message that's being presented this is how you   choose color you want to evoke certain animations  and so you can relate back to the color psychology   so let's have a look at three different examples  of three different color schemes on this design  

which one of these do you think works the best  when it comes to a kind of exercise or changing   your life sort of color scheme try and ask  yourself for a question why would this color work   so here are some keywords that relate back  to the color psychology of the particular  

color scheme for RNG kind of yellows we have  energetic excitement and change red kind of   work danger passion or a warning and green can  relate back to Natural Tranquility or healthy   so when you want a design to relate back to a  change of lifestyle or a change of anything and  

some kind of energetic movement oranges always  going to be a very good choice for this kind of   design also when you consider the design here  has very energetic lines angled straight lines   that plays back into the color psychology  here so for the second choice here we have  

another grayscale design and this is just a  quick advert that will be promoting skin care   or body creams and again we are going to look  at emotion or connotations of a color scheme   but when you are trying to sell or  advertise or design something based  

around skin care products specifically aimed  at women what color schemes would you go for   this example I'm going to show you the finished  design right now and that is pastel kind of skin   tones as you can see we have some darker skin  tones here and then we go into pinks and also  

a really pale color here so why are these  synonymous with beauty products or skin care   products there are some very good reasons why  these kind of colors are used on these products   pastel colors a vocal kind of openness and  a relaxation feeling when they're viewed  

they're very peaceful in soft colors which is  great for selling things such as beauty products   as you can see on the right the saturation has  been upped a lot and it's too kind of aggressive   for this style of design also using pastel skin  tones does relate back to the product itself which  

is trying to sell something that will make really  healthy and really beautiful skin so these are the   kind of things you do need to keep in mind when  you're designing something you need to relate back   to the product the message and the overall feeling  for this webpage here I've gone ahead and I've  

actually colored in four aspects of the design in  a kind of Goldy orange color the rest is grayscale   at the moment but we're soon going to change  that and actually I'm going to give you three   different examples again and you should try and  work out which one works the best for the design  

so here are your three options to choose from  which design looks the most functional from a   color scheme standpoint and can you actually  answer why it works this option is less to   do with emotion and it's more geared towards a  graphic design principle in terms of color schemes  

so one really useful method you can apply when  choosing colors is to utilize contrast and one   really neat way to do that is complementary  colors now these are colors that are opposite   each other in the color wheel and of course these  are contrasting this renders a design impacting  

but also these colors are visually appealing when  put together and this is something you might want   to choose for your design when you pair it  with things like a motion and the message in 1974 K.W Jacobs demonstrated red to be more  stimulating than green and green more stimulating  

than blue according to this study a person  left in a red room is constantly stimulated   with heightened awareness and elevated heart rate  and in 1981 Richard cooler showed in studies that   color had a great effect on EEG readings and  heart rates as well as emotional perceptions  

of objects so color does have a direct physical  response on our bodies and can actually play on   our emotions but here's the first very important  thing you want to keep in mind as a designer it   isn't necessarily the color that's important  brightness and low saturation creates a soft  

feeling whereas dimness and high saturation  creates a hard or strong feeling also weaker   contrast and weaker saturation conveys calmness  as opposed to a stronger contrast and saturation   which convey activity it's why pastel colors are  often given to baby things or are considered by  

some to be calming because they lack saturation  and as you can see things do start to become a   bit tricky when it comes to the use of color and  color theory but only if you don't properly absorb   the content in today's video and potentially you  do take some notes let's just say hypothetically  

we're making a design for an insurance company  now it could be a logo a brochure whatever it   is using this knowledge you might then choose  one low saturation and two weak contrast these   decisions will convey a sense of calmness which  is great for conveying to the tiger audience that  

they're in safe hands and that yes they will  purchase 100 Years of your finest Insurance   knowing the message or feeling you want to send  out with your design allows you to then select   things like saturation contrast and brightness but  let's go deeper with color theory even yet still  

in common color theory you've probably heard  this a thousand different times the color red   relates to danger but also to passion and lust to  blah blah blah yes to some extent this is true of   course us but get this we already know that from  the study mentioned earlier that red creates a  

heightened sense of stimulation being stimulated  like that does a few things some of those things   include changes in breathing patterns pulse blood  pressure and muscle tension okay cool but where   does that even fit into graphic design so when  people are at this level of stimuli they're more  

likely to recall something and to form memory  Loops it's like mini trauma and our brains are   designed to latch onto Trauma from a survival  point of view many Brands and many designs use   red or similar colors to grab attention and to  create Hard Solid memories to the audience think  

of Brands like CNN or Target as example so for  the UI and ux designers out there hubspots ran   a study on the effect of switching website call  to action buttons from green to red and they got   some very very conclusive results the red button  outperformed the green button by 21 in terms of  

Click through rate which is pretty major in the  business World color theory can be fiddly and it   can be precise at times for example combining a  vibrant red and green together can end up being   unpleasant to the eye but if you lighten the  red to a soft pink and then make the green less  

saturated and slightly darker it then becomes  a decent color palette one that is immediately   memorable and Visually appealing to use there is  a spanner I could throw into the works right here   culture culture plays a vital role in how people  feel towards color red typically denotes love in  

the West in Japan however red is associated  with wrath and anger there are many different   examples of how different cultures use and feel  towards color but here's yet another spanner to   throw into the works age and gender Studies  have shown that women tend to prefer softer  

more pastel colors whereas men prefer Bolder  colors it's important to note that this is   just an average and won't apply to everyone in  a group but when making designs and decisions   on those designs we aim to kind of appeal to the  majority of a target audience and not just the  

minority this should tell you that you absolutely  must know your target audience in terms of the   age gender location what they like and dislike  and what you want them to feel with your design and for this first section you're going to want  to write down words linked back to how you want  

to make the viewer of your designs feel and don't  worry if you're kind of lost it is going to make   sense later in today's video let's take a look  at an existing example so you get the idea so   this landing page wants to make the viewer feel  like they are in good hands notice how it says  

we help you get more leads emphasis on that word  help blue colors are strongly linked to a sense of   security and it's why most Financial based brands  use blue in their branding but a light and a soft   blue like this one here is also quite calming so  the words you might write down relating to how you  

want the viewer to feel are safe secure and calm  notice however that we also have hints of orange   on our design orange is a color linked to action  and movement and so this will help to Usher the   viewer to take action and click the link so the  other feeling you want the viewer to feel is a  

need to take action simply because the whole point  of this design is for the viewer to click that   button we want the colors to make the viewer feel  a certain way when looking at the design sometimes   there'll be someone who pops up in my comment  section I hear on YouTube and they will say  

something like oh color psychology is rubbish and  it's completely useless this is a clearly ignorant   standpoint because psychology especially in terms  of color is used by pretty much every major brand   out there not to mention that color psychology is  something ingrained into the human brain and also  

into cultures around the world so to say that  color psychology is rubbish or useless is very   very ignorant and it's just redundant to be honest  let's look at another quick example for this   section this design wants people again to feel  energetic and to take action it says accelerate to  

your blog's growth that sentence not only suggests  the viewer to actually do something right now the   word accelerate is in there which in of itself  is very energetic and again a strong bright color   of yellow is used in this design and this time  it's the main color unlike the touches of orange  

we saw earlier yellow is linked to energy and  positive change much like orange and this is no   coincidence it's color theory and psychology the  next step is to look at your Design's personality   and again we want to write down those words that  best describe the personality of your design let's  

look at this design again and there is a lot of  white open space suggesting a more minimal and   a more clean design the fonts used and the style  of use is quite friendly especially considering   we have a little message in handwritten text next  to our model for this design I would write down a  

clean minimal and friendly and add these below  the first section of words that we've made we   want to build an overall idea or concept of our  design with these keywords from here it's a case   of just taking your words and thinking about color  psychology so pop online and take a look at what  

each color signifies from a psychological point of  view and then match up your keywords to one two or   three colors so this is where the fun begins and  when we start to experiment with our color schemes   I'm sure you've probably heard of adobe color  which is a great free tool for creating color  

schemes but there is another website you might  find useful and I think I want to share that   with you guys and it's a sessions College color  calculator let's just say for example that your   research has pointed you in the direction of  a friendly and a natural organic design so you  

want to go for a muted kind of tame a green this  is your starting color this is your base color   you can then cycle through different color Harmony  schemes such as complementary monochromatic and so   on always start with that base color from your  research and then explore what else can work  

and then what might fit into your design for  example here the green could be the majority   of my design I.E that main color and then maybe  this pink or this orange could be the call to   action focal points and other Design Elements  so this is how we do it we first want to think  

about the viewer and how we want them to feel with  our design and then we think about the Design's   personality before methodically going about the  color scheme itself sometimes when you're lucky   the brand or the client will give you a color  scheme and then that means most of the work  

is really done for you but I hope you see how  design can be a methodical step-by-step process   and yes it's creative but it also requires  some you know methodical thought as well one thing you might not know about illustrator is  that if you hold down shift and click the color  

menu a different menu is actually presented  to us now I'm currently working in RGB so I   do have the relevant RGB sliders but if I then  hold down the shift key again and click and drag   notice that I'm actually dragging all three  sliders at the same time this is actually a  

quick hack to add tints and highlights to your  color straight from the RGB slider panel which   is pretty neat also when we take the color window  something that is often overlooked by some people   is the ability to complement a color straight  from this panel this of course refers to the  

complementary color scheme where opposite colors  on the color wheel are paired up together so   for example if I take this blue here and I use a  complement button we should get an orange foreign ifty and time-saving tip in illustrator is a way  to change an entire design color scheme with just  

one click make sure you select everything you want  to change and then come to the edit colors menu   here we have a lot of color options  such as grayscale saturation and so on   and as you can see I now have a totally grayscale  selection with just a single click one of the most  

powerful ways to use color in illustrator is to  focus on global colors to use this option open   up the swatches window and then select the  base color that you wish to use as a global   color then click the top right menu and add a new  swatch make sure the global color box is checked  

and once you've made the Swatch you will notice  that the icon has a white triangle in the corner   this is now a global color this means that  whenever you use this specific color on your   project and then you come into the menu  and you edit it or transform it into a  

different color it will actually change  across your entire design simultaneously foreign everybody has heard of color psychology and the  rules attached to that psychology but do these  

color rules really mean anything in business and  branding well yes they do but it can get quite   confusing let's start with a simple rundown of  the main colors for logo designs and how they can   be received by people from a psychological point  of view orange is an invigorating playful color  

and it's one that will make your logo stand out  from the crowd and it's often used to represent   a positive change or action and energy red is the  universal sign for excitement of passion but also   anger now like orange it will stand out from the  crowd but it can be seen as a negative kind of  

connotation in some cases it's a color to be  used cautiously and don't worry we're going   to look at things in Greater detail later in the  video this is just a quick rundown of the colors   if you want to interject a thoughtful cheerful  and energetic emotion into your brand or your  

logo yellow might be the way to go and again this  color is very loud green is very straightforward   because it represents nature growth health and  it can be used in almost any sector of business   blue symbolizes trustworthiness and  maturity now you should be using blue  

if your brand wants to be taken seriously  it's also a color that can be quite calming   now purple is feminine but it also expresses  luxury and is often the color linked back to   royalty so in shorts It's a pretty  sophisticated and feminine color  

in Western Society nothing says girly like pink  does but it is a lot more versatile than that   you know if pink is a more vibrant neon version  of its color then this can represents energy and   a more modern emotion Browns will often make your  logo appear rugged masculine and also serious in  

nature but Browns are rarely seen in logo design  black can be slick and it's a modern and luxurious   color to use on the logo and it's often used for  high-end brands so that's all well and goods but   how can you determine the right color for your  logo and should you even follow these conventions  

well firstly you should return to the data and  the research that you have on your clients brand   generating keywords linked to your brand  is essential to the color that you choose   understand the brand and also the typical custom  of that brand and then you can Target them with  

the right colors let's look at a famous example  and that would be Cadbury The Chocolate Company   a recent study showed that 78 of people who heard  about Cadbury on Facebook were in fact female   knowing this tiny bit of information is so  so powerful because what color does Cadbury  

predominantly use in their branding if we  step back to the color psychology color theory   purple represents luxury sophistication and even  royalty but crucially it's a very feminine color   so The Branding of Cadbury would appeal more  to females which is great considering what  

percentage of people who engage with a brand  are female but it goes even further than that   in the minds of the consumer the use of  purple elevates the concept of Cadbury   as a brand to Heights of sophistication class  and even royalty Cadbury didn't just randomly  

choose purple it was of course a very well  thought out and targeted choice and this is   how you should approach Your Design projects  by targeting people with irrelevant choices   just remember that research is King but then  the question arises should you stick to just  

one color now me personally as a logo designer I  rarely use more than one or two colors on a logo   if you are a beginner then yes it is always safe  and an easy bet to stick to just one or maybe   two colors but then what about Google or even  Microsoft they have many colors in their logos  

yes these logos for the most part do work  however the designer who uses many colors   should know exactly what they're doing with one  color is great for brand recognition and strength   an example here would be Coca-Cola with their  red branding but using multiple colors might  

be a good idea to stand out from the crowd the  thing is it needs to be used in a well thought   out manner which often goes wrong for novice or  beginner designers an example here would be the   craft Rebrand there is a lot wrong with this logo  but the overuse of color is one of those things

now color can be used to stand up from a crowd  in the right way but again it needs to be thought   out and planned if we take a look at social  media you will notice that many logos or apps   do use the color blue so we have LinkedIn  Twitter Facebook behance Tumblr and so on  

but then we have some outliers and one of  those is Snapchat decided to go for yellow   as their main branding color which for sure makes  them stand out of the crowd imagine if Snapchat   Used Blue on their logo it probably would become  somewhat lost in a sea of social media branding  

so something else you need to keep in mind when  choosing colors for your logos is to understand   where in the world your client is based  and also where the target market calls home   now why is that important well because different  cultures will sometimes have different reactions  

to the same color whites in the West's kind of  resemble pure and a clean design whereas in parts   of Asia it can represent death so again this  comes down to research and just data Gathering simply coming to Adobe color which is totally  free and then head into the explore option here  

we can type in relevant keywords from our brief  and our client research and this will help us   decide on relevant color schemes for our designs  as an example if I'm designing a logo for a kind   of modern tech startup this color palette right  here would be possibly a great idea in fact I  

know I've seen such logos use this kind of  palette before in the past when it comes to   Tech inspired logos this easy method for choosing  colors is so fast and yeah it's pretty easy to do   not to mention really highly targeted towards  our audience if we've done the correct research  

the best time to use this tool is probably on  Logo designs or branding projects or just when   you want to evoke a very certain emotion to the  audience but what about this color wheel here well   I got this thing a long while back on Amazon and  I think it was about ten dollars or thereabouts so  

not too expensive but yeah this single color wheel  actually does four very important things firstly   it shows us what colors we get if we add the three  primary colors to another color on the wheel as   well as adding black or white so here if we add  red to blue we get a purple as the example on the  

front here it also shows us from white to black  in grayscale as it's printed out found along the   bottom and all of this is just really good to have  when you're designing on your computer at your   desk but the really cool thing is when we go ahead  and flip it over to the back but yeah firstly on  

the back we can see in real time the complementary  this split complementary and the tetrad color   schemes it also goes into detail about analogous  Triad and other Harmony good stuff but if you look   right here we also have tint tone and shade  of every single Pure Color on the color wheel  

this thing is really handy for people who learn  in a Hands-On kind of way it's also good to have   at your desk when thinking about print design  work and it also kind of doubles up as a frisbee maybe not the third tool that is used for  color and which designers probably should  

be using is built directly into Adobe  Illustrator when we come into the edit   colors menu and go to recolor artwork make  sure the link icon is checked and then we   can experiment by Shifting the color  scheme for a single design as a whole

you can of course unlink the selection to move  around single colors but if you want to make   quick variations of a color scheme of an entire  Design This is perfect for that kind of situation   now here's the next tool for color use and it's  called pigment on the left we can quickly change  

the brightness and saturation of the selection and  then hop into something we like the look of this   is where this website really comes into use you'll  notice at the bottom we have the hex code the RGB   values but also the Pantone which is really  useful and if we come up here and click more  

actions we can see that we're able to download  the color choice to three different useful file   formats we can create and control the direction  of a gradient to using just the two colors and we can create a duotone image with  those two colors which is pretty cool  

we just need to search in the search bar find  an image and apply the color as a Duo tone and of course we can also share the color  scheme to somebody else now let's not talk   about the other option on there which was use a  logo maker with those color schemes because the  

less set about logo makers probably the better  but yeah this tool is best used for those who   want a quick and intuitive way to make a cool  Duo tone color scheme for your next project   and the fifth tool today is a bit more advanced  than the previous one palleton can look a bit  

confusing when you first open it but here's  the main use case for this thing now we can   do conventional stuff for creating color  harmonies on the wheel and then off to the   right we have color options related to those  harmonies with the hex color codes and so on  

however if we come up to the examples here we  can see our selector color scheme and how it   might function on real life projects firstly  on a website design which yeah let's be honest   here this web page looks like it's straight up  from the 1990s but it is cool nonetheless I'm  

sure you will agree on that and then we can see  it right here on some animator Graphics as well   we can also export our creator palettes  which is always handy to have of course moving on we're going to look at a Photoshop  trick that will save you heaps of time and  

will really help when using Color now I first  heard of this from the great pixin perfect some   years ago if you want to change the color of an  obvious selection on our image we don't need to   use any masks at all just simply go ahead and  make a hue saturation adjustment layer and then  

select this tool here and Sample your desired  color once selected you'll notice Photoshop   has actually picked it out at the bottom here  which then means we can just go ahead and change   the Hue of the selection really easily indeed  and of course that's without using any masks

this color wheel in particular is useful because  it shows Hues tints tones and also shades the Hue   is the Pure Color around the edge of the wheel  and then the tint is taking the Hue and adding   white to it a tone is the Hue plus white and plus  black and finally the shade is the Hue plus black

let's move on to the color grips like I've said before monochrome is one of my  favorite color groups but it does have a time and   a place foreign to make a monochrome color select  a hue and then add some black or some white to  

the Hue I.E a tin to a tone or a shade and then  generate a color spectrum by using that one hue   the thing about monochrome color schemes is  that the eye you're viewing it brushes over   them smoothly and softly because  it's no real contrast in color  

so it's very relaxing and very appealing to the  eye but this means that your design is not going   to pop so to speak and so it's not exactly a  tension grabbing that should suggest that you   shouldn't use this color scheme for designs that  warrant urgent attention select signs or charts  

and stuff like that but I find it's very good  for Digital Arts and certain logo designs too complementary colors are maybe the easiest  to understand you simply select one Hue   from the color wheel and then locate the  direct opposite of that color on the Wheel

it doesn't have to be a hue though you  can use a tin to tone or a shade but the   key is to locate the direct opposite of that  color unlike monochrome colors complementary   are totally contrasting which means they can be  jarring on the eyes but they do grab attention  

also there is something appealing to  the eye about them when using designs   however you need to use them with caution try and  use like a hue and a tint and then complement that   Hue and that tint to have four different colors  instead of just two this gives the design more  

depth and it's not going to be so jarring on the  eyes a famous design that uses this scheme is a   Firefox logo and also notoriously the drink Fanta  uses a complementary color scheme too foreign color on the base color and then choose a  color either side of it on the color wheel  

this is a three color analogous scheme but if you   want to use five just choose two more  either side of the first selection much like monochrome colors and the logos  do not have much contrast within them  

they have slightly more but they're  not exactly complementary are they   with that in mind these are again good for  Digital Arts softer designs and specific logos   I personally wouldn't be using them for a sign  that says for sale or wants to grab some attention

this next color scheme requires that you find the  color that you wish to use for your design then   move four spaces leaving three gaps in between  and then do that again around the color wheel   you then have three different colors  evenly spaced out around the wheel  

traded colors need to be used very wisely  because they're very contrasting and a design   can be overpowering to the eyes when using the  scheme so I again suggest to experiment with   tints and maybe tones and shades they are great  for charts and infographics but make sure that  

text and information isn't lost due to the high  contrast of color one famous logo that utilizes   this color scheme is the Burger King logo and it's  a very attentions you can design in terms of color foreign

ln today we have split complementary and  this is where you choose a color from the   color wheel then move directly opposite but take  two colors on either side of the opposite color   this color scheme is quite obscure and is very  difficult to get a good balance in terms of  

color for your design it can work however but it  would require experimentation and playing around   with tint somewhat as you can see on this web  design page apart from the cyan and the white   everything is split complementary and it does  actually work pretty well now if you haven't  

got enough color goodness from today's video you  can always click the video on screen now which   will provide more educational content but until  next time guys design your future today peace