Previously, I’ve talked about how to choose the right color for your brand and logo design showing credibility. But beside color psychology, the color circle is what will help us choose the complementary colors. Which end up by turning our projects into harmonic combinations.  

Complementary colors are the ones that work well together exhibiting an attractive color scheme. In order to have a harmonic design I’ll introduce you to some new terms on color theory. So, today we are going to discover some concepts about color harmony.

Monochromatic color

The word monochromatic tells you it’s a one and only color chosen from the color circle. So in side this color, we are going to have different tones, but always with the same base color. This variations come from different light exposure and saturation of the same color.

The main color can match neutral colors, however it could be a little harder to make something important stand out with this combination.

Analog Colors

Now, analog colors are the ones formed by two colors standing side by side on the circle or wheel of colors. Take one as the dominant and the colors beside to enrich the harmony.

Although they are pretty easy to define and to use, they are not much contrasting. It’s a richer combination than the monochromatic option, but it’s not as vibrant and perfect as the complementary colors.

Complementary Colors

When symmetric opposite colors inside the circle meetup they are complementary colors. It’s a 180º between two arranged colors.

This theory works even better if we combine hot and cold colors like blue-yellow or red-green. It’s like a contrasting harmony. And it’s interesting to choose one color as the main one and the opposite color to highlight spots, info or details. For example, you could put green in a background and red to emphasize important elements.

Triad Colors

This type of combination is very attractive visually and it counts on 3 colors that are equidistant in the circle. For example: blue, yellow and red. They can bring a very interesting visual effect.

This option is really popular between artists because brings high contrast and maintains color balance. Actually, it’s not as contrasting as complementary colors, but has more balance and harmony.

Split Complementary Colors

How about getting harmony with a mixture of one tone with two colors near to the complementary color? It’s not difficult if you look at the image below. Using this theory you also get contrasting aspect but without that great tension between the colors. It works really well too and it’s very clever to use it for logo designs.  

Double Complementary Colors

As the name affirms, it’s the harmony among two pairs of complementary colors. This is the richest combination of all because deals with 4 complementary colors (in between).  

But it’s hard to make it to work out. All the four colors together are really strong, so you cannot use all of them in the same amount. You need to choose one as the leader and then use the others in the details.

So when you are about to start a new design project, image or logo take a look at this color theories and rock on!