4 Tips for Creating a Color Scheme on Your Blog

Basically the rule of thumb is to pick colors that will "play nice" together. This can be accomplished by choosing colors that fall into certain categories. For best results, pick ONE of the following categories and stick with that for a given blog theme.

Here are the four easiest ways to choose a color scheme:

1) Complementary Colors-- this means any colors opposite each other in the color wheel. For example: Red/Green, Blue/Yellow, or Purple/Orange. For variety, you can also use tints and shades of the colors you've chosen: pink and light green, for example.

2) Analogous Colors-- this means any 3-5 colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. So, you could pick yellow-green, yellow, and yellow-orange, for example, since they are all right next to each other on the color wheel.

3) Split Complementary Colors-- this is similar to complementary colors except that you're choosing one color on either side of the complement to your main color. So let's say your main color is red, the two accent colors for your scheme would be blue-green and yellow-green, which are the colors on either side of red's complement of green.

4) Triadic Colors-- this refers to any 3 colors that are at exact distances from each other on the color wheel. One really obvious example of this are the "primary" colors of Red, Yellow, and Blue. You could also do something like Red-Orange, Yellow-Green, and Blue-Violet, or just use tints of primaries by using Pink, Lt. Yellow, and Lt. Blue.

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Just some other quick hints on using color in blogs and other design work:

• Simpler is better. Keep your color scheme between 2 and 5 colors if you can.
• Remember that you can always use tints (lighter values) and shades (darker values) of whatever color you picked to add some variety while still staying w/in the color scheme (this doesn't count in the 2 to 5 number).
• Always REPEAT colors within your scheme throughout your blog template. This helps your design feel more cohesive. For example, if you have red in the header, add it again in the navigation bar or somewhere else around your blog.
• Remember to consider contrast. A light text on a dark background is much harder to read so avoid that for your body text. Try to make your body text at least 4 shades darker than the color you use for your background. The higher the contrast between the colors, the easier it will be for people to read it.

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{This article was first published on the Better Blogger Network}