Complementary Themes

Colors residing in opposing positions on the color wheel are known as complementary. They naturally complement each other and provide an equal level of energy to a piece of art. Examples of these include red and green, purple and yellow, or blue and orange. These color schemes will create a high level of contrast between elements. are great when used in illustrations to highlight a piece of scenery or cartoon character. Often we’ll see this used on an article of clothing or wardrobe attire. The matches can become very overpowering so, do use them sparingly.

Text will often perform well over high-contrast black/white but is best rendered with slightly less saturation. In this way text off the page won’t hurt the readers’ eyes but is still easy enough to follow. There is also a second lesser-known scheme titled split complementary. This contains a base color which also brings in two colors opposite the spectrum. It’s derived by the two adjacent neighbors to the base complementary.

As an example for a split complementary with red as our base we would need both adjacent colors beside green (but not including green). This would target green-yellow and blue-green. This pair provides the benefits of a high-contrast ratio without the jagged tension from a strictly complementary relationship. Often, these can be difficult color schemes to balance out. The base color of choice is usually located in the warmer region so you have 2 cooler color options for highlights, backgrounds, and smaller graphics.