As a kid, nothing was more wonderful than new boxes of crayons: all the colors lined up in rows, each of equal size and potential. I loved dividing my stash into different palettes. I’d move the greens from the pinks to the reds and notice how all the hues seemed to shift.
This is how I learned to colors are relative. For example royal blue can feel bright and vivid or it can feel dull and tired depending on what’s next to it. The key to building effective color palettes is to pay attention to how all your colors are interacting. Most of the time I rely on plain, old intuition to decide on colors but when I’m stumped there are two techniques I use to jump start the process.
