Color Combinations on Your Layouts

by Lisa Andrews | More from this Blogger

When designing scrapbook layouts, choosing the colors you will incorporate into the layout is very important. The colors will set the tone for the layout. When you understand the basics of the color wheel, it can make choosing pleasing colors easier. Understanding some basics of color theory will help to use color with purpose.

There are four types of color combinations that I would like to share today: monochromatic, analogous, complementary and triadic.

Monochromatic color schemes are made up of one hue in several different shades or values. For example, all of the colors in the following layout are different shades of blue.

Another color scheme is Complementary. This means that two colors directly across the color wheel from each other are used. Some examples are red/green, blue/orange and yellow/violet. Just are the names suggests, these colors complement each other and provide a pleasing color contrast. In the following layout, I used the yellow/violet combination.

A third color combination is Analogous. This is when two to four colors next to each other on the color wheel are used. Some examples of this are yellow/green/blue, red/yellow/orange and orange/yellow/green. Thinking about each of these color combinations, you can almost visualize the type of photos you would want with the colors. In the following layout I used two analogous colors: pink (shade of red) and orange.

Triadic combinations are made up of three colors equally spaced around the color wheel (they form a triangle.) A couple of examples are green/orange/purple and yellow/blue/red. This involves using colors that are more varied than the other color combinations. You will not usually use equal amounts of each color. The next layout shows the yellow/blue/red combination with yellow being the dominate color, red the next and then just a touch of blue.

These are not the only possible color combinations, but they are a great start to creating pages that look pulled together and well thought out.

Learn more about Lisa Andrews

Lisa loves to scrapbook and tries to work on some sort of scrapbook related project every day. She's co-owner of Scrapbook Circle, a monthly scrapbook kit club.

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