Everything you need to know about color theory
June 26, 2019
The difference between good design and great design sometimes can be the chosen colors, for that reason is very important have in mind colour theory during our designs to create the best color palette for every graphic design, that is why today I will show you the best 5 free color tools that every graphic designer should know.
Khroma is the AI Color Tool for designers, where the first step is choosing 50 colors that you like, that step is important to Khroma because with that election of colors, khroma will train their color generator algorithm to create a endless combinations of colors personalized to you by your favorite colors.
After picking your favorite colors Khroma will train their algorithm to generate all these color combinations, and after some waiting Khroma creates your color palettes, the menu of Khroma is very easy to use and have many different options.
The first element that we see at the top left of the page is called templates, that is a great tool because you can choose how to showcase the color palette, you have 6 different options there, Type, Poster, Gradient, Image, Palette and Favorite.
With the type option you can saw your color combination in a typography, combination of background and font color.
In Poster option you can see the two colors generated together and see which combination you like the most.
If you like any combination created by Khroma you always have two options on every color combination created, you can save it as favourite, and if you click on details you will see the the colors parameters.
Now, the gradients are the new colors and they are everywhere, and you have endless opportunities with gradients, and with the gradient option you can create tones of great gradients.
The image option works really great if you are creating a poster or ad and you want to give that colorful effect, with this option you can preview different color combinations for your photos.
The last option to showcase your generated color palette, is the palette option where Khroma generates for you a selection of 4 colors that works well together your designs.
If you want that your design have the red color or another specific color, you can use the search option, where Khroma filters your results by that colors, but it also can filter by specific colors, hues, tones, tints or combinations.
With bias % you can control the accurate of your generated colors combinations, high bias is more accurate to your elections, and with low bias, khroma will give you more diversity of colors.
The best part of this tool, is that you can add to favorite all the combinations you like and saw them at every moment.
Color Hunt is a great tool where you can search inspiration for different color palettes, in Color Hunt you can search for already created color palettes by other users and like them.
You can filter by New color palettes, trendy colors, popular color palettes that have most of the likes, and if you feel lucky and want to see what fortune prepares for you, you have the random option.
You can also create your own color palettes and share with the community who can give your color combination likes and share it.
Culrs is also a great color tool for every graphic designer, if you are struggling for create a color palette for your design, culrs help you with that, it have tones of color combinations and you can choose by 4 different categories, Analogous, triad, monochromatic and tetradic.
A cool thing about Culrs that I really like it, is that when you choose any of that categories explain you the meaning of the different color combinations, a function really helpful for beginner graphic designers that are learning.
I really like Culrs because is a platform created by two designers who will help you to avoid the process of create the color palette, because they do it, they already have created more than 500 color palettes with all the Hex Codes.
Maybe coolors is the most known color tool, but it’s also very useful tool, because makes the process of create a color palette very quickly, when you enter to the generator, you press the spacebar and coolors generate a color combination.
When you saw one color that you like, you can block it, and press again the spacebar, and coolors will generate a color palette working well with the color that you have chosen.
For every color generated you have 4 options, first mentioned is block that color, buy you also can drag it, adjust the different parameters to create your color, and finally you have the alternative shades option, where you can choose different shades of that color.
In Coolors you also can saw the color palettes created by other users in the explore page, where you can filter by latest, picks and the best, and choose your favourite color palette.
Color leap is little bit different from the other color tools for graphic designers, and I really like it because now you are making a travel to the past and the different ages of art and graphic design.
Let’s explain how color leap works, you need to choose one era from all the options you have.
The cool part of that app, is that when you choose one era, you have a description of the colors used during that ages and why were used, really cool feature in color leap to learn some history of art and graphic design. Also you have different examples of posters from that ages and the color palette used on them.
