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Analogous or Complementary colors?

With color harmony in mind and using just a simple chart you can put more emphasis on the data shown. Using colors, you could help the viewer to distinguish the information easier as well as guide their eye to a certain area of a chart that you want to focus on. Having a color theme […]

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October 2, 2013
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Color Principles

With color harmony in mind and using just a simple chart you can put more emphasis on the data shown. Using colors, you could help the viewer to distinguish the information easier as well as guide their eye to a certain area of a chart that you want to focus on.

Having a color theme in mind for my pie charts, I could use analogous colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel for a more harmonious color scheme.

analogous_color

Or I could use complementary colors that sit opposite each other in the color wheel for more contrast between each slice.

complementary_color

While it may look more appealing or even stylish to use analogous colors (it may be useful in some situations), for practical use I find it to be a better choice to use complementary colors. This way each slice has enough color contrast for the viewer to easily distinguish between each value that’s being displayed.

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