When customizing garments, we have a whole spectrum of colors available to us – both with the apparel itself and the imagery we decorate onto it. For example, did you know that there’s over 1,800 solid coated Pantone® colors? Or that CMYK process can produce over 16,000 color combinations? With such a vast range, choosing colors can be difficult! That’s why a little color theory and a few helpful tips will go a long way toward customizing with confidence.
Color Theory
Color can be broken down into three main attributes - hue, saturation, and value.
Hue: What color are we looking at? (red, blue, green, yellow)
Saturation: How vivid or intense is this color? Is it a bit greyish, or is it a bright, intense color?
Value: How light or dark is the color? Is it a light tint or a dark shade?
Color Harmonies
A color wheel demonstrates the relationship between colors.
For harmonious color schemes, it helps to look at a color wheel. The color wheel is arranged with the primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, assembled in a triangle. Between the primary colors, are the secondary colors, orange, green, and violet. Then, the tertiary colors are found between the primary and secondary colors - these colors are red-orange, yellow-green, and so on. Now that you have a color wheel, let's get into color harmonies!
Analogous colors: These are the colors next to each other on the color wheel. Think green and blue or yellow and orange.
Complementary colors: These are the colors directly across from one another. These color schemes create a very bold look. Many popular sports teams use complementary colors, like the Los Angeles Lakers (purple and gold) or the Chicago Bears (navy and orange). If the colors compete too much in their most saturated forms, you can adjust the saturation and value of one or both colors.
Complimentary colors like purple and gold are commonly used for professional sports teams.
Complimentary colors navy and orange create a bold look that draws the eye.
Split complementary colors: Three colors - pick your first color, then choose the two colors on either side of that color's complement.
Triadic colors: Three colors that are evenly spaced apart on the color wheel. For example, this could mean a primary color scheme (red, yellow, blue).
Tetradic color scheme: Four colors - this is a combination of two complementary color schemes, which creates a rectangle on the color wheel. With this many colors, it can be hard to keep your design balanced, so you may want to change the saturation and value of a few colors.
Color Psychology
Color often represents or can evoke emotions and feelings. Consider the feeling you want to go for when designing your custom apparel. Bright, contrasting colors are great for powerful imagery and sports team logos, whereas soft pastels can be a better option for a boutique fashion line or even children’s wear.
Other Helpful Tips & Resources
Have you ever printed a transfer order and been convinced it was produced in the wrong color ink only to find out it was just an illusion? Sometimes it seems like one color can change the hue of another color - this is called simultaneous contrast. To make sure certain ink colors work together on a specific color garment, you can request our ink color test samples. This free program allows you to test up to 10 color samples in our Howard Multi-Purpose ink, so you can make sure everything looks perfect for your customer!
We offer 115 stock ink color options (which seems like it should be enough!), but sometimes a design requires a very specific color we don’t offer. In this case, you can request a Pantone® color match.
If you have an idea of the colors you’d like to select for your transfers but are still struggling between the ink colors we offer, it’s a great idea to purchase one of our color guides to make your final choice. These guides feature actual printed swatches of each stock option we provide in an easy-to-use ring book which lets you easily place the swatches up against garments to see what colors will work best for your projects or even take with you to show clients.