Colours can draw attention, and can be used to label and show relationships (e.g. compare / contrast).
It is recommended that you use a colour palette of up to 3 colours (a primary colour, a secondary colour, and an accent colour).
A basic understanding of colour theory can help you decide on the best colour combination.
Using the right colours and contrasts can enhance the effectiveness of your data visualisations. Three colour schemes that can be used for impactful data visualisations are:
This video provides a brief introduction to these colour schemes and highlights common misuse of colour.
For a more comprehensive presentation on colours, watch this video below.
Generate single scale (sequential), divergent scale and multi-colour (categorical) palettes for your charts and graphs with the Data Visualization Color Picker tool .
Features include previews of how your palette would look like on different charts or graphs, and a detailed "How To Use" guide for each colour scheme. More information in the video below:
Tips
If you have already generated a colour palette for your poster, try to use similar colours in your visualisations to maintain consistency.
Features in these tools include generating of random palettes, options to generate palettes based on colour harmony and lists of trending colour palettes.
Tips
A small group of your audience may have colour blindness and are unable to distinguish colours such as red /green or blue / yellow. When creating coloured charts, consider using a colour blind friendly palette or add textual labels to indicate important data points.
Coolors is a tool that we found to be most suitable for beginners. In addition to generating colour palettes, these features on Coolors can help you improve accessibility of your poster:
Watch this video for a quick introduction to Coolors and its features.
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