S18 Recommendations for Color Palettes

Recommendations for your 4 harmonious/compatible colors:

  • Your colors can be bright, saturated colors or shades/tints of colors.
    I recommend not mixing the two. Aim for similar values -- not a combination of saturated and pastel.
  • Pick a color that you might use for a page background that doesn't compete or overwhelm the content on it.
  • Avoid doing combinations of colors/shades/tints that make creating contrasting type/content on those colors difficult.
  • Also avoid colors that clash (obviously!) or that are too similar (example: 4 different shades of green)
    Clashing and too similar palettes

Recommendations for your 5th neutral palette color:

  • Possible uses: text type (think neutrals, black or white) or background. For text type, the color must CONTRAST against the basic block colors. Keep accessibility in mind.

Here is an example from Adobe Color (note... I used Custom color selection). I have 4 colors for the background shapes and 1 color as a neutral for text type.

 

If you want to tweak or change your palette, try one of the following sites: