: How to choose color palettes for a theme? Do you know / can you recommend good practices in choosing a color palette for a theme ? As you might have guessed, I am not a professional in
Do you know / can you recommend good practices in choosing a color palette for a theme ?
As you might have guessed, I am not a professional in the graphic field, I do coding and from time to time I have to do some graphic work for which I'd like it to be pleasant/efficient to the eye but this proved to be incredibly hard.
Here are a few examples :
From a professional graphic designer:
This design while not very pretty is very ergonomic in the sense that you can work the whole day looking at it, your eyes won't burn. This design is very user/eye-friendly.
Some of my attempts :
This one is awful, but from the time I've spent on it (10 seconds) not much to expect from it.
This actually is my favorite and only one I have in fact, while colors are pleasant it's not very eye-friendly and soon becomes a mess as I add more colors (such as the indicator). The main problem with it is that literally it took me days to find this scheme !
This is another beast that I'm quite quite happy with though I'd say it's rather by accident, actually the colors are the result of a sound analysis. While I did some adjustments their initial hue came pretty good by chance. And post-processing really helped here.
I have tried nearly every thing I could think of but never really achieved something satisfying, for instance designing a red theme. Whether picking colors in a palette randomly or using some pseudo logic, using some website it just seems that I can't get some good combinations.
Some of the website I've seen : ContrastA (great site), colrd, colorschemedesigner
So the question is,
How do you choose colors for a theme ?
More posts by @Murphy569
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This comment is right on spot. If someone will be looking at this for a prolonged time, or in a room with low light, you definitely need to think of colors in terms of contrast and eye strain.
When our eyes are exposed to a hue for a prolonged period, the rods &
cones become fatigued. This occurrence can be advantageous if you are
seeking the opposite, or contrast, of a color. This may be dismaying
to a viewer if presented with prolonged exposure to colored screens or
reading materials. Source
A quick example of a very contrasting image (if you look at this for 20 seconds and then look away, you'll still see the birds):
So in your case, you will need to find colors that are contrasting enough so you distinguish background from content, but not to contrasting that might cause eye fatigue.
Your first sample is good, the white and blue (might try with a lighter stroke, though, just for aesthetics). Your second sample is too contrasting, the yellow and red clash and it's difficult to look at for long-ish periods. Your last two samples are closer to a 'harmonious' palette, but only if the exposure is still not too prolonged.
A good example of a nice, simple graph is SoundCloud:
en.support.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/soundcloud-track1.png
But if you want colors I'd try with less contrasting ones, something in the lines of:
So it looks like a soundwave, but really it depends on what the end use of this will be. There is no real right answer here as it's a matter of opinion, you could however browse kuler.adobe.com for some ideas.
Some questions I would consider
Does it need to be functional/not distracting?
Is it intended as an artistic piece?
How do the colours related to the sound/data?
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