How to use Colour to Your Advantage

Nothing catches the eye quite like colour.

 

Reds and yellows in particular are bold, attention-grabbing colours; proven by their frequent presence on emergency signs. It’s easy to say, ‘let’s have such and such colour wristbands’ but it doesn’t necessarily mean those two colours complement each other.

Today’s topic then is to look at colour theory and wristband design; and how different coloured texts suit different coloured backgrounds. What impact does your colour choice have on the success of your wristbands and how well is the visibility of some colour choices as opposed to others.

 

The Different Colour Types

In order to mix and match colours, it’s always a good idea to start at the beginning with understanding how colours are made and where different shades come from. Once we understand the process of making colour, we have the knowledge on how to use it.

 

Primary

Red, Yellow and Blue.

Coincidently these colours are introduced to many of us at primary school during a fun (and messy) paint task. Primary colours are 3 colours that can’t be made from any combination of colours.

 

Secondary

Green, Orange and Purple.

Secondary colours are the results from mixing our 3 primary colours.

 

Tertiary

Blue-purple. Blue-green. Yellow-green. Yellow-orange. Red-orange. Red-purple.

Mixing a little further can produce tertiary colours; those that come from mixing secondary and primary colours together. The colouring is often used for landscape paintings, such as the sea or grass.

 

The impact your colour choice has on the success of your wristbands…

You may be of the impression that your colour choices have no impact on the success of your wristbands, but if your wristbands are being used as a marketing tool, colour design plays a significant factor. It’s all down to colour harmony.

We all know harmony means to be in sync with each other and content in that synchronisation; in visual meaning, harmony is exactly the same. Your colour choices need to create a design that is eye pleasing and interesting to your audience.

It’s all about balance. Overdoing the colouring in your design can be daunting and often hurtful to look at; it’s like listening to a singer straining their voice, it’s not good. The opposite – understating your colours by using only one or two colours – also has a negative effect. Your design can become boring or bland.

 

Getting the right visual look…

In conclusion, the best designs are made from harmonious colour choices. There are two ways to make sure your wristband design has maximum impact.

 

Analogous Designs

Use shades from the same primary colour. For example, if your wristband is for a seaside adventure park start with Blue and Yellow as your primary colours. From there you can use…

Blue, blue-green and green to represent the sea. Yellow, yellow-orange and orange are good sandy colours for the shore.

Analogous designs are designs consisting of colours that have subtle changes between them. Often than not, the colours come together to make one solid image that is pleasing and often pretty to look out. The technique is used for example in printing plants; several different shades of green are used to represent the shift of light on the petals. The subtlety keeps the image pleasing while the use of several shades as opposed to a solid green, keep the design from becoming boring.

Recommended products for Analogous Designs…

Dye-sublimated products such as fabric wristbands or lanyards are perfect printing materials for analogous designs. Printing for these products is done by heat-transfer onto a smooth satin finish so gradient colours can be printed without sharp interruptions between colour shades. Plus, there’s no colour limit on dye-sub products.

 

Complementary Designs

Rather opposite to Analogous Designs, Complementary Designs use shades opposite each other on the colour wheel rather than next to. For example, contrasting colours green and red work will together (think Christmas wristbands). As the colours are opposites, they create contrast while surprisingly balancing each other out.

Recommended products for Complementary Designs…

All our wristbands can be used for complementary designs. As there aren’t gradients involved, all full colour products can have complementary designs printed on them. Full colour Tyvek. Full colour Vinyl. Customised Silicone. Customised Fabric. Customised Lanyards. The list goes on.

 

For reassurance on your design, you can email our team with your enquiry and artwork details and we will get back to you with a quote and digital proof. If you’re supplying text in a specific font, please either outline your text beforehand or supply us with your font. For best artwork results, send your graphics, logos or images as vector files. More information on artwork guidelines can be found on our website here.