Tutorials

Color Selection in Graphic Design

Tutorial 1 with Matisse Template – Exercise 2

We will continue to use the template from the previous lesson in this tutorial.

Here, we will use the same approach, but we will apply the methods in an even simpler and more direct way to rapidly create a vibrant composition. This should help illustrate how easy and fast this process can be.

The goal is a more striking composition, with mostly stronger contrasts.

Before -- After

Step 1

Open the Matisse template. You may download the template here. Select the layer “Shapes” to get ready to fill in the forms with the Paint Bucket tool.

Step 2

Again, we will create a palette so we can start picking colors. We will create a palette with respect to white again, since again that is our background color. (In future lessons, we will call this our target color. In this case, our target color is white, which we are creating a palette for.) You can go through the same process in the previous lesson to create the palette, or you can simply reuse the palette you saved. Open the HVC Color Composer. Select “Auto-Range”. Click “Save Palette”. Save the palette. Click “OK”. Open the palette you just saved. Again, they are organized by contrast groups. Weak, Medium, Strong, and Very Strong. Now we will use this palette to fill in the composition.

Step 3

This time, before choosing colors from the palette, we will start with black. Black has the strongest contrast against white. So rather than start with subtle contrasts as we did in the previous lesson, we will start with strong ones to create visual anchor points in the composition. We are just demonstrating the variety of approaches one can take. You can start with strong or weak contrasts, and move on to diversify the contrast ranges, or keep the ranges similar. There is no right or wrong way. As long as the colors are chosen from the palettes, the sense of order will be present.

Step 4

Now we choose these colors from the Very Strong contrast group, and apply them to the composition.

Step 5

Finally, we choose these colors from the Strong contrast group, and finish the composition. We now have a very vibrant, balanced piece that took very little time to create. In the next lesson, we will execute one final composition using this template, using a different background color. We will also begin to become familiarized with contrast numbers, rather than referring to them qualitatively as Weak, Medium, and so on. Understanding contrast in terms of numeric values will be important for more advanced lessons.

Next - Exercise 3