How to Create a Color Scheme for Your Blog
- Steph Castelein
- Aug 20, 2019
- 4 min read
When I started my blog, I was using a little bit of every color as my "theme".
Sure, I liked teal but I also liked green, peach, orange, charcoal, red, blue, and about every other color out there. I mean, how is a person to decide with all the goodness of the rainbow at your fingertips?
As I started to expand into YouTube and an email list (via MailChimp), my colors were all over the place. I had no consistency and the little that I did were all different shades.
That is, until I took a Pinterest course and a color palette template was included. I knew that a uniform look would take my blog to the next level and so I hopped right to it.
I'm a pretty indecisive person, thinking that everything has to be perfect before I put it out into the world (aka why it took me 3 years to start a blog), but this took me no time at all. I'd been putting it off for a long time because I thought it would take a lot longer than it actually did. A little research was all it took and in no time, I had come up with a color palette and scheme for my blog. Boom baby.
I'm honestly shocked at how much I reference my color palette guide and wanted to share it with you because it's that darn easy. It has made a BIG difference in taking my blog, YouTube channel, and email list to the next level.
If you're just getting started with your blog, you can implement this from the get-go or if you've been blogging for awhile it's pretty easy to go back and change your colors to fit your new theme. That's what I did. Whatever you decide to do, don't let choosing a color scheme keep you from starting your blog. It doesn't have to be perfect. Use the resources and ideas I have below and just go for it! You can always adapt or change if you need to but starting is the key my friend!
So where and how do I use my color scheme? I use it for ALL of my online work. Website, blog, facebook posts, YouTube thumbnails, email list. Anytime there is an opportunity to change a color, you better believe it's one of the 10 colors on my color palette.
Admittedly, I'm NOT a professional when it comes to choosing colors. You can dive deep into the meaning of colors, and how people respond to them, and what each of them represent, but this is more of a blog post to lead you in the right direction and give you the resources I've used.
Ready? Here we go!
3 Tips to Get Started
Find a color scheme that catches your eye. Pinterest is a good place to start, but if you have a color in mind that's good too. Here is a GREAT article that shows different color palette examples for you to consider.
Pick 4-8 colors for your palette. I'd recommend choosing 1-3 for your primary colors and 3-5 for your accent colors. You don't have to use every single color, every single time, but you'll notice how nicely all of the colors go together when you create your palette. You'll see below that I have 10 colors. I told you I was indecisive! As I've started to use the palette more and more I've realized that I primarily use the top 5 and the bottom 5 once in a blue moon.
Create an easy to use reference! Use photoshop, keynote, pages or any other program you're familiar with to create a color palette reference that you can pull up anytime you're working on a new project. I keep mine in a folder on my computer and pull it up whenever I'm working on something new! Here's what mine looks like:
Two websites to help you choose your color palette!
COLOR HUNT: This website has endless examples of color themes for inspiration. Use it to see what colors you like together and then use the next website to create your palette!
COOLORS: I reeaaalllyyy like this website for helping you create your color scheme. Coolors automatically generates color combos for you and you can lock in the individual colors you like and change the ones you don't.
My favorite part though is that you can take a picture you want to base your colors off of (again, this is great if you use Pinterest and have a specific photo that you can reference) and it will automatically come up with a color scheme.
Check this out, I used this photo of a sign to the nature megaphone from my last blog post and it created a color scheme based on the few colors in the photo. How awesome is that!?
Check out these two articles for more ideas!
I found these two articles a bit wordy, but you might find them useful! They dive a bit deeper into choosing a color palette.
There you have it! A simple way for you to create your own color scheme and palette for your blog. Like I mentioned above, I'm really surprised by how often I've referenced my palette.
It's really helped keep my website, email list, and Youtube channel uniform and I'm excited for you to try it out for yourself!
Let me know if you have any questions. I'm always happy to help!
Happy blogging,
Steph
PS If you liked this blog, you might also like these!
Commentaires