How to Convey an Autumn Mood with your Colour Palette
Autumn is my favourite time of year! All the beautiful colours and shades of red, orange, yellow and brown. It is an endless source of inspiration for colour palettes and in today’s blog post, I’m discussing how to convey an Autumn mood with your colour palettes.
When we think of autumn, a lot of us think of being wrapped up warm with a hot drink next to the fire. A very traditional image I know, but it’s the image we want people to imagine when they look at our autumn patterns. It’s the feeling we want them to have so they associate our pattern with that season i.e it fits the season of Autumn.
Traditional Autumn Colours
Generally speaking, when we think of Autumn we think of the following colours:
Red
Orange
Yellow
Brown
You can of course include other colours like white, green, purple etc. But most autumn patterns will have at least some of the main colours listed above.
In the example pattern above I’ve not used highly saturated bright red, orange, yellow or brown, instead I’ve used slightly more muted and softer shades, tints and tones of these colours.
Below you can see the colour palette that was used with the neutrals colours below it. I’ve used a selection of yellow, orange, red, rosy pink and green with my neutrals having white, cream-pink,, beige, taupe and chocolate. This is quite a big colour palette, although as I was designing it for print-on-demand, I wasn’t concerned that the number of colours was too great, since a lot of POD sites are using digital printing these days and therefore you can (as least in theory) have as many colours as you wish!
How to Start your Palette
Begin with the colours red, orange, yellow and brown in mind. The way I usually select a colour palette is to begin with the main colours, and then create a series of colours that are lighter, muted, softer and darker using the main colour as the base. From this you can create 20+ colours that will naturally be harmonious and give your colour palette cohesion.
From the colours you’ve made, select 3-10 colours (depending on the pattern you’re creating and what products you’ll end up using your pattern on as well as where you’ll use your pattern). From these colours, then begin to craft your colour palette. Remember to include a variety of light and medium, or medium and darker colours so your contrast is good. You can of course include light, medium and darker colours, and if you do so, your colour palette will have high contrast. This is good if you like your patterns to really stand out and have maximum impact, as the difference from your lightest colour to darkest will be the highest it can be.
Once you’ve come up with your colour palette, remember that it can changed if it doesn’t work! Try out the colour palette on your pattern to see how it looks.
A few tips to help:
If you’re using bright, saturated colours = add in plenty of neutral, muted and/or softer colours to balance those bright colours
Include at least 2-3 neutral/muted/soft colours = although this will depend on the individual pattern and the number of colours in your palette
Bright colours give the mood/feeling= energy & lively
Muted & softer colours give the mood/feeling = cosy, vintage, natural
Ideally aim to include both warm and cool colours in your palette
Check your colours on the tonal range chart so you can see the tonal difference (if you need help with this, check out my free pdf resource I have)
I hope these tips will help you when next creating an autumn colour palette. Leave me a comment below and tell me what helped you! I love reading your comments :)
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