james_butler•7d agoMost Upvoted

Hot take: You don't need fancy software to learn color theory. Here's what worked for me.

Last month I was stuck trying to pick a palette for a flyer and Adobe was just overwhelming me with options. So I pulled out a box of 12 Crayola markers I found in my closet from 3 years ago. I spent an afternoon just mixing and matching them on scrap paper to see what looked good together. It sounds silly but it helped me actually understand complementary colors way better than any tutorial did. I even used one of the combos I made for the final flyer and it turned out fine. Anyone else ever go old school with physical stuff when digital gets too much?

4 comments

4 Comments

nora7357d ago

Oh man, I totally did this with highlighters and construction paper last week, it's so much easier to see what actually works!

gavin9287d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, did you try using different colored paper to see how the highlighters actually behave on different backgrounds? I bet that would change everything since most digital stuff has white backgrounds but real life doesn't.

michaelcoleman7d ago

Crayons felt like overkill for me. I just grabbed a couple sharpies and some scrap paper and called it a day.

paul_burns7d ago

Did you find that going physical helped you notice stuff about saturation and brightness that you missed on screen? I ask because for me the crayons had such a limited range that it forced me to think more about contrast instead of getting lost in 50 shades of blue. That constraint ended up making the whole process click faster than any color wheel app ever did.