4 answers
Evaline
Student
Bothell, Washington
5
Questions
Updated
915 views
What are the best colors for Digital art?
I need some feedback from real people, not Google. What are the best colors for digital art, any type of digital art! Abstract, nature painted look, sketched look, I don't care!
4 answers
Kim Matthews
Graphic Production Designer and Sculptor
136
Answers
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Updated
Kim’s Answer
Hi Evaline,
Here's the thing about color: there are no "bad" colors because color is relational--colors look different according to how much of each color is there and what's next to it. Colors are used to express feeling, so the "best" colors to choose would be those that express the idea or feeling you're trying to convey.
It's also important to know when working with color, colored light and colored pigment (in paints, inks, etc.) behave very differently--but you can tackle that later. I know you're focused on digital art, but you'll want to understand how color works in general, in any medium. Also, the universe of available colors on screen is far smaller than what you can achieve with paint or other media.
To keep things simple for now, try experimenting with various colors on screen or using colored papers and see, for example, what happens when you put complementary colors next to each other (colors that are opposite on the color wheel: blue/orange, red/green, yellow/violet), and what happens when you put analagous colors, such as red, orange, and yellow next to each other. How do these color combinations affect you?
Try experimenting with different amounts of color too--larger shapes with smaller shapes, triangles with circles, and so on. If you have a good museum nearby, maybe look at some paintings you like and try to figure out what's happening with the color in them. For example, many people love Matisse's paintings and paper cutouts because he used vibrant colors, alone and combined with others, often in very clear, strong, flat shapes to create a sense of joy.
There's an important book and course by painter and instructor Josef Albers, Interaction of Color, that has many basic color theory exercises in it and is still used for art school color and design courses. It might not be interesting to you now, but if you pursue art, design, or illustration studies, you'll need to understand how color works. If you're not ready for Albers, there are lots of short color theory tutorials for kids on YouTube, so you could start there.
Hope this helps!
Here's the thing about color: there are no "bad" colors because color is relational--colors look different according to how much of each color is there and what's next to it. Colors are used to express feeling, so the "best" colors to choose would be those that express the idea or feeling you're trying to convey.
It's also important to know when working with color, colored light and colored pigment (in paints, inks, etc.) behave very differently--but you can tackle that later. I know you're focused on digital art, but you'll want to understand how color works in general, in any medium. Also, the universe of available colors on screen is far smaller than what you can achieve with paint or other media.
To keep things simple for now, try experimenting with various colors on screen or using colored papers and see, for example, what happens when you put complementary colors next to each other (colors that are opposite on the color wheel: blue/orange, red/green, yellow/violet), and what happens when you put analagous colors, such as red, orange, and yellow next to each other. How do these color combinations affect you?
Try experimenting with different amounts of color too--larger shapes with smaller shapes, triangles with circles, and so on. If you have a good museum nearby, maybe look at some paintings you like and try to figure out what's happening with the color in them. For example, many people love Matisse's paintings and paper cutouts because he used vibrant colors, alone and combined with others, often in very clear, strong, flat shapes to create a sense of joy.
There's an important book and course by painter and instructor Josef Albers, Interaction of Color, that has many basic color theory exercises in it and is still used for art school color and design courses. It might not be interesting to you now, but if you pursue art, design, or illustration studies, you'll need to understand how color works. If you're not ready for Albers, there are lots of short color theory tutorials for kids on YouTube, so you could start there.
Hope this helps!
Thank you. That was really helpful, Kim
Evaline
You're so welcome. Here's another link for you: https://www.albersfoundation.org/learning/workshops/one-color-becomes-two
Even if you don't try any experiments, you'll be able see what I'm talking about right way when you look at the image at the top.
Kim Matthews
Dr Fisch
Flight Attendant
85
Answers
Denver, Colorado
Updated
Dr’s Answer
To give a better answer, we need a bit more detail. Right now, the question is too broad, like asking which letter is best for writing a sentence. It really depends on what you want to express with your digital art and your personal style. A simple tip is to use colors that stand out from each other so lines are clear, unless you're aiming for a gradient or blurred effect. Also, if everyone used the same "best colors," things might get a bit dull.
Tiphani Law
Filmmaker
5
Answers
Tucson, Arizona
Updated
Tiphani’s Answer
When creating digital art, there are two important things to know. First is the hardware, which is the electronic device that makes your digital art. It has some limits, especially when showing art on TVs. So, you need to use colors that are safe for broadcasting to make sure they look right on screen. The second thing is color space, which is a way to describe the range of colors your device can show. Some common color spaces are REC 2020, REC.709, Adobe RGB, and sRGB. So, the best colors to use are the ones your device can display!
Here's a fun fact: Digital art is made with light, and light is actually analog, not digital!
Here's a fun fact: Digital art is made with light, and light is actually analog, not digital!
Liam Rielly
Data Center Technician
180
Answers
Manassas, Virginia
Updated
Liam’s Answer
This may be the hardest question on this entire site! So I am going to answer it!!
I could answer this with an hex value like, 2596be, the RGB value like (37, 150, 190), or the CMYK value like 81, 21, 0, 25. I could describe the color like "its a grayish blue that is a little more teal than like a solid blue but bold and not washed out". I could go to home depot and pick out a paint chip and hand it to you, there are almost infinite colors that exist though. Some colors look good in some context, some colors don't. This is because color selection is SUBJECTIVE. You cannot say this one color, or five colors look great in general, use 2596be for your project, and you are making a fire engine mock up for a local fire station. People will think "but fire engines are not blue so why is that the perfect color!".
Your job as an artist is to explore colors, master them, make pallets of those colors, and put colors in places to evoke emotions in the viewer. It is virtually impossible to say that the same color will look the same to everyone. Some people are really sensitive to color and take to it or reject it based on how they see that color or if they like that color or not. The house three doors down from where I grew up was 84e3b0 and it stood out like a sore thumb. I remember people hated it and complained about it. The reason their house was that color was because their daughter died and it was her absolute favorite color. Having their house that strange color (for the area) made them feel calm and close to her. Later I think they sold the house to someone that loved the color and kept it just because (and it was painted nicely so it made sense). That color might be perfect for them, or 2596be might be the fire chief's daughter's favorite color and they absolutely love that as a fire engine color. You need to define these things as an artist.
Andy Warhol is a perfect example of someone who did this. The "Campbell's Soup Cans" series he did showing them in various colors was one of his most iconic works. Its one of those pieces where someone looking at it would say "I could have done that!" and they are right, but they didn't. They didn't have the same vision or the same drive to share what they saw. Andy Warhol did many pieces like portraits and other iconic images. This is how you need to think when you create. How can I take something that I see and use color to make it look a way where other people can see what I see?! I can't answer that question, you need to answer that question for me in the format of a piece of art or a graphic.
But to answer your question there are a couple more layers to this! When I look at the give advice button in the top right corner of this website it is c386f8. When I look at the submit button on the bottom it is 1accbd. I am looking at this website on a Dell Pro 27 inch P2725HE monitor. This monitor is set to a warm color profile so everything appears more yellow. This is a work monitor, not really a monitor for someone making a website or graphic design. The physical display that you are showing off something on will change the color appearance even it something is the same exact color. For paints, light is shown on a surface, the colors not absorbed by the surface are reflected and that part of the light spectrum is what we see as the color. For a monitor, the pixels on the monitor are essentially changed to an RGB value and then a back light is used to shine through that pixel to show as color. This is why a black screen is not dark, it still looks like something. From this we can start to talk about depth of color, what is the color of the light around the screen, and on and on. There are too many variables that exist in the world to say that a color is the same color everywhere, colors on electronic devices are going to look different based on the specific device they are on.
Apple computers is really the innovators of this field. They take color theory, electronics design, web design, and culture into a whole new realm. This is the true magic from apple and has made them an iconic computer manufacturer for artists for decades. You don't have to have an Apple device to design, but you should look at the "how" of what they did to achieve this.
I am an electrician and there is a small group of electricians that work with interior designers, stage design, and similar artistic settings. One reason is because when an interior designer picks out a color scheme and a light fixture for a room, they don't know what either are going to look like until they are in the room together. It is difficult for an electrician to put in a light and change it again over and over based on the "look". Natural light coming in the room can change it more. If your view outside has more trees and green, or desert, or ocean, or sky, it will change the look of everything again. Warm lights (lights that are more yellow) look good in places that have colder outdoor temperature, while cool lights (lights that are more blue) look better in places that are hotter. A device like a phone can be present in both of those locations and might look different in those locations. Your art is to figure out the best means of what color looks good on a variety of devices and screens.
Make something like a website with a pallet of colors on it you like. Visit that website on different computers, phones, and tablets. Try to see that same pallet inside, then outside, then in the dark indoors somewhere. Make it easy enough to change the pallet the way you want to adjust the colors and see what you can come up with for colors you like. Make layered images where you can adjust the color and hue of the layers, export the images in different colors and try the same thing. This is your creative process so you need to come up with methods that work for you and do them often so you can master your craft!
So to sum everything up, the perfect color for your need is hex value 84e3b0 because it reminds my neighbors from 30 years ago of their daughter. But try colors 000000 to ffffff to see what else you can figure out.
Go to Home Depot and collect paint chips. Take them and tape them to the wall, in your window, in your closet, all different places and start to see how colors look different in different environments.
Make a mock up website on wix or wherever its free and make a pallet so you can quickly look at it on different devices and screens. Start to pick colors that look good to you and journal them.
Visit sites like https://coolors.co/ , https://css-tricks.com/ , https://randoma11y.com/ , https://colours.neilorangepeel.com for color theory ideas
Check out sites like https://picsum.photos/ , https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_development/Core/Styling_basics/Home_color_scheme_search , https://codeguide.co/colors , https://meettheipsums.com/ , https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/11/guide-modern-css-colors/ , https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Values/color_value/rgb for implementation ideas
Get familiar with style guides made by large tech companies like: https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa/alexa-haus/apl-style-guide , https://support.apple.com/guide/applestyleguide/welcome/web , and don't search for specific answers on google, redit, chatgpt, figure out your own style and answers!
I could answer this with an hex value like, 2596be, the RGB value like (37, 150, 190), or the CMYK value like 81, 21, 0, 25. I could describe the color like "its a grayish blue that is a little more teal than like a solid blue but bold and not washed out". I could go to home depot and pick out a paint chip and hand it to you, there are almost infinite colors that exist though. Some colors look good in some context, some colors don't. This is because color selection is SUBJECTIVE. You cannot say this one color, or five colors look great in general, use 2596be for your project, and you are making a fire engine mock up for a local fire station. People will think "but fire engines are not blue so why is that the perfect color!".
Your job as an artist is to explore colors, master them, make pallets of those colors, and put colors in places to evoke emotions in the viewer. It is virtually impossible to say that the same color will look the same to everyone. Some people are really sensitive to color and take to it or reject it based on how they see that color or if they like that color or not. The house three doors down from where I grew up was 84e3b0 and it stood out like a sore thumb. I remember people hated it and complained about it. The reason their house was that color was because their daughter died and it was her absolute favorite color. Having their house that strange color (for the area) made them feel calm and close to her. Later I think they sold the house to someone that loved the color and kept it just because (and it was painted nicely so it made sense). That color might be perfect for them, or 2596be might be the fire chief's daughter's favorite color and they absolutely love that as a fire engine color. You need to define these things as an artist.
Andy Warhol is a perfect example of someone who did this. The "Campbell's Soup Cans" series he did showing them in various colors was one of his most iconic works. Its one of those pieces where someone looking at it would say "I could have done that!" and they are right, but they didn't. They didn't have the same vision or the same drive to share what they saw. Andy Warhol did many pieces like portraits and other iconic images. This is how you need to think when you create. How can I take something that I see and use color to make it look a way where other people can see what I see?! I can't answer that question, you need to answer that question for me in the format of a piece of art or a graphic.
But to answer your question there are a couple more layers to this! When I look at the give advice button in the top right corner of this website it is c386f8. When I look at the submit button on the bottom it is 1accbd. I am looking at this website on a Dell Pro 27 inch P2725HE monitor. This monitor is set to a warm color profile so everything appears more yellow. This is a work monitor, not really a monitor for someone making a website or graphic design. The physical display that you are showing off something on will change the color appearance even it something is the same exact color. For paints, light is shown on a surface, the colors not absorbed by the surface are reflected and that part of the light spectrum is what we see as the color. For a monitor, the pixels on the monitor are essentially changed to an RGB value and then a back light is used to shine through that pixel to show as color. This is why a black screen is not dark, it still looks like something. From this we can start to talk about depth of color, what is the color of the light around the screen, and on and on. There are too many variables that exist in the world to say that a color is the same color everywhere, colors on electronic devices are going to look different based on the specific device they are on.
Apple computers is really the innovators of this field. They take color theory, electronics design, web design, and culture into a whole new realm. This is the true magic from apple and has made them an iconic computer manufacturer for artists for decades. You don't have to have an Apple device to design, but you should look at the "how" of what they did to achieve this.
I am an electrician and there is a small group of electricians that work with interior designers, stage design, and similar artistic settings. One reason is because when an interior designer picks out a color scheme and a light fixture for a room, they don't know what either are going to look like until they are in the room together. It is difficult for an electrician to put in a light and change it again over and over based on the "look". Natural light coming in the room can change it more. If your view outside has more trees and green, or desert, or ocean, or sky, it will change the look of everything again. Warm lights (lights that are more yellow) look good in places that have colder outdoor temperature, while cool lights (lights that are more blue) look better in places that are hotter. A device like a phone can be present in both of those locations and might look different in those locations. Your art is to figure out the best means of what color looks good on a variety of devices and screens.
Make something like a website with a pallet of colors on it you like. Visit that website on different computers, phones, and tablets. Try to see that same pallet inside, then outside, then in the dark indoors somewhere. Make it easy enough to change the pallet the way you want to adjust the colors and see what you can come up with for colors you like. Make layered images where you can adjust the color and hue of the layers, export the images in different colors and try the same thing. This is your creative process so you need to come up with methods that work for you and do them often so you can master your craft!
So to sum everything up, the perfect color for your need is hex value 84e3b0 because it reminds my neighbors from 30 years ago of their daughter. But try colors 000000 to ffffff to see what else you can figure out.
Liam recommends the following next steps:
Wow, that took me a long time to read, but thank you, that was really helpful
Evaline
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