Free Resources To Learn Color Theory

We love colors when we were kids.

If you are involved in the creation or design of visual documents, an understanding of color will help when incorporating it into your own designs. Choices regarding color often seem rather mystical, as many seem to base decisions on nothing other than “it looks right.” Although often told I had an eye for color, the reason why some colors worked together while others did not always intrigue me and I found the study of color theory fascinating.

So today in this post, I put together various articles, and tutorials to learn (almost) complete color theory for free. Yes, For Free.

Fundamentals

Color theory is both science and art of using colors. It explains how we mix, match and use colors to make beautiful, useful and impactful things. On 99Desings’ Blog there is an article The fundamentals of Understanding Color Theory which helps me a lot.

And after completing the 99Designs’ article, there are other articles which I prefer you to read first before moving towards the advanced articles.

1. Color Theory for Designers, Part 1 — The Meaning of Colors It's a great article for beginners. Don’t get confused by the title as it says ‘Color Theory for Designers’. Believe me, I am not a designer when I read this article. But now I am.
2. Color Theory for Designers, Part 2 — Understanding Concepts and Color Terminology Hue, Saturation, Tints, Tones and many others terms related to color theory seems confusing for beginners. This article explains every term in a very simple and effective way.
3. Why Color Matters So, you have completed the above articles and get to know a lot about color theory. But before moving forward in Color Theory, you must know why color matters.

Advanced

Now you are mature enough to know things like Color Psychology, Color Blindness and How to Design for Color Blind User, and much more. But don’t get afraid of all of this. Once you’ve known all the basics of Color Theory, it’s time to level up your knowledge. So, I have researched a lot for myself and also for you guys to find some easy articles to learn some (not so) difficult skill.

1. Color in Design: Influence On User’s Action Believe me, color affects us a lot. It makes us happy or sad. It makes us energetic and sometimes makes us lazy. This article covers it all.
2. How People Perceive Color Around The World Curious about the way different colors are perceived and the emotions attached to them. This is where color theory really lives — not in the saturation, hues, and tones (though these are also important), but in the feeling and meaning they transfer. I highly recommend this article.
3. Color blindness: how to design an accessible user interface An estimated 253 million people live with vision impairment: 36 million are blind and 217 million have moderate to severe vision impairment. So it’s important to know how to design for those too.

Color themes/Color schemes

So you’ve learned the basic as well as advanced color theory. But what now. No you have to make beautiful color schemes that work together really well. Feeling confused, following articles helps you (me) a lot:

1. How to choose a color theme Choosing a color theme effectively is key to the success of a design. So how do you go about choosing the best combination of colors for your project? Sam Hampton-Smith reveals all in this article.
2. Building your color palette Ever used one of those fancy color palette generators? You know, the ones where you pick a starting color, tweak some options that probably include some musical jargon like “triad” or “major fourth”, and are then bestowed the five perfect color swatches you should use to build your website?
3. Color Theory for Designers: How To Create Your Own Color Schemes This article covers traditional color scheme patterns (monochrome, analogous, complementary, etc.) as well as how to create custom schemes that aren’t based strictly on any one pattern.

Tips and Tricks

Everyone loves tips and tricks, so here are a few for you:

1. 6 Tips on Using UI Colors The article reveals six tips on choosing colors for mobile and web interfaces. It shows techniques helping UI designers to boost user interest to a product.
2. 4 Quick Tips For Using Colors in Web Design Do websites look nice when they use all the colors of the rainbow? Probably not. How can you use colors in web design that actually looks good? Using colors properly can give your web designs that professional and clean look. Here are a few simple tips that will help you choose the right colors and use them properly in web design.

A Little More

We have come a long way in the journey of Color Theory, but let me tell you a beautiful truth, ‘There is no end in the journey of Color Theory’. So there are few places on the internet where you find a lot (lot, lot…) more on Color Theory:

1. medium.com/design
2. smashingmagazine.com
3. webdesignernews.com

Thanks

I really appreciate you and your time. I hope you found this article helpful. If this article helps you, then make sure to clap for me (digitally, or physically). You can also follow me because I am also planning (in my head) to write some more posts while I am writing this.