The Mario Blog

06.20.2008—2am    Post #241
How to create that special color palette : a three-minute interview with Dr. Pegie Stark Adam

COLOR WEEK CONTINUES: Pegie is perhaps the most qualified expert on newspaper color. Pegie combines that rare combination of artist/designer/journalist/teacher. Here she provides us with a quick, but insightful, lesson on how she approaches color in her own work.

blog post image

THE COLOR PALETTE: Pegie shows us above a step by step approach to creating and utilizing a color palette that will resonate with your readers.

TAKEAWAY: Better color printing allows us superb color reproduction, but one fact remains: color should be functional and never used as decoration.

MARIO: What are the key points for a designer to remember when creating a color palette for a newspaper, magazine or online edition?

PEGIE:
Color is subliminal. It carries mood and meaning. A publication should reflect its philosophy and should reflect the environment in which the readers or viewers live and work in. The colors used in a publication will influence how readers view and experience a publication.

Here’s my process of creating a color palette:
Think about the philosophy of your publication – who you are, who you want to be, what your ‘spirit’ is. All of these words or phrases can be associated with a color.

Look around at your environment—out the window, in the streets, in the architecture, in the clothes people are wearing.

Using pastels, colored pencils or markers, create small patches or sketches of each of the colors that stand out in your ‘philosophy’ and in the ‘environment.’

Your color palette will be created from those combinations.

Here’s an example:
Let’s say the ‘philosophy’ of your publication is:
Aggressive, energetic, urban, gritty.
And the ‘environment’ is:
Small town, lots of green, red brick, friendly

Then associate colors with these terms (see attached):
Aggressive: hot or warm colors that have long physical wave lengths that come forward in space – red and yellow are examples
Energetic: Bright tones of primaries
Urban: Saturated tones like browns and grays
Gritty: Gray, black, deep earthy tones
Small town, lots of green: Two or three tones of grass green, brown green and yellow green
Red brick: deep earthy red
Friendly: Brighter tones of all of the above

Now put all of the color patches together. You will have duplicates. Sort the similar colors. Then recreate the colors swatches on the computer with a 100%, 50% and 10 or 20% of each of the colors. Limit yourself to no more than 8 key tones of color. Make sure you have a version of red, a version of yellow, a version of blue, and a version of gray in your palette so that the color circle is complete. (see http://www.poynterextra.org/cp/index.html)

Your color palette can be used for all spot color, color screens, info graphics, fact boxes and other accessory items.

Your color palette will reflect who you are and where you are while the reader will connect ‘subliminally’ with their publication.

MARIO: How do you see the state of color use in daily newspapers today?

PEGIE:
It’s so much better than it has ever been. Production and printing presses have improved so that we can hold very light screens and very subtle color combinations that include more than two colors. People using colors have studied the craft and have developed color palettes and color uses that are most sophisticated and multi-dimensional than ever before. No more ‘comic book’ colors!

The web presents clear, beautiful colors that readers and viewers are used to. I find that print publications are improving their color to also compete with the lovely vivid, clear colors in the web publications.

MARIO: What is the one TIP that you always make sure your students and clients walk away with in terms of color use?

Color is information and NOT decoration. You may like certain colors but if they do not reflect who you are and what you are about or where you are publishing, color will give the wrong information to the reader. Every color means something and carries with it physical and physiological properties that affect people subliminally. Be careful with color because it is one of the most powerful tools in your designer toolbox.

WHERE IS MARIO: Working in Tampa all week.

The Mario Blog
sat essay christopher hitchens example.