How to Pick the Right Colors for Your Explainer Videos
Choosing the right color schemes for your explainer videos is more important than many people think
Colors don’t just grab your viewers’ attention. They can, more importantly, reinforce your message.
Be it a real-world product or digital service, the proper use of colors is often that extra kick that your explainer videos need.
In this guide, you’ll find out how to find that ideal color combo.
We’ll also learn how to implement it to achieve the results you’re looking for.
But let’s brush up on the basics first.
Colors 101
We can precisely describe a color using three categories.
- The simplest is hue, another word for color (i.e., red, blue, yellow, etc.).
- Saturation describes how muted or vibrant a shade is.
- Value/brightness represents how light or dark said hue is.
Then we have the color wheel, a visual organization of hues to make sense of all this.
The color wheel makes it simple to create eye-catching and pleasing combinations using color theory.
The color theory defines hues to one another. Therefore, we can use said theory to help us choose shades that work well together.
Whether we want strong contrasts or a harmonious palette, here are a few common concepts to get us started.
Monochromatic color schemes occur when we expand a base hue through saturation and values.
Monochromatic schemes allow for contrast without picking a different shade due to varying amounts of black and white in it.
The result is a scheme that feels focused and unified.
Complementary schemes happen when we put two contrasting hues together. As such, the following duality creates visual tension and contrast.
Use complementary to make your video feel alive and dynamic.
Analogous is a scheme that consists of hues that sit next to each other on the color wheel.
They do not generate high contrast, leading to a softer color combination that mixes well.
Analogous creates visuals that feel all-encompassing and thorough.
We make a triadic color scheme by combining three evenly spaced hues in the color wheel. One primary shade is often chosen, with the other two used complimentary.
Triadic schemes create high contrast by default, though they can also be overwhelming.
The trick is making the two different colors have a softer tone.
The triadic scheme is excellent when your video needs a lot of available contrast to work with, like when there are a lot of graphs and pie charts.
Where to look
Now that we know how colors generally work let’s look at where we can pick the right ones.
1) Company logo
Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.
Logos are often included in marketing videos to represent the company. Using the colors from the said logo is the most direct way to strengthen brand identity.
Add a neutral color to help balance out and accentuate the company colors.
2) Brand genre colors
You can also go for the broader view and choose a palette that fits the brand genre of your business.
Using standard colors in your field is another way to reinforce brand recognition.
A famous example is how fast food companies use red and yellow in their corporate branding. Red makes you hungry, while yellow evokes a sense of comfort.
Not only does it improve sales, but it also means that a fast-food restaurant is instantly recognizable.
3) Nature of the video
In addition, color choice can depend on the feelings you want to elicit in your video.
The right palette will not only make your video look great but will also set the tone.
Classic examples include red which can be a negative color, signifying anger, aggression, danger, and violence.
Take a look at a thrilling scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
How to get the results you’re looking for
Color is a massive part of what we see in animation. As touched on earlier, colors, at their core, evoke moods.
Furthermore, they can direct attention to crucial details, represent character personalities, and allude to changes/arcs in the video.
So let’s look at the ways we can achieve those outcomes.
Firstly, we need to balance the amount of each color we’ll use. “Big, medium, small” is a good rule of thumb. Having a perfectly divided mix of hues feels rigid and unnatural.
On the other hand, having a dominant hue supported by a splash of complementary ones adds variety and is less tiresome.
Implementing white/negative space is essential too.
In palette terms, a neutral background (white, light gray, black) allows your chosen colors to breathe by reducing the number of elements that your audience sees simultaneously.
Lastly, remember that colors must always support your video’s message. Never let the palette draw focus only on itself.
We achieve it by avoiding overly bright colors, harsh contrasts, and overdone gradients.
Doing so keeps visual clutter to a minimum, ensures straightforward storytelling, and ultimately creates a focused video.
A Study in Blue
We’ll now examine this video made for Clustermarket, an all-in-one lab management tool, and learn the principles behind its color choices.
Motion graphics with white, black, and dark blue are, by design, the first hues to stand out.
Since those are the primary colors of Clustermarket, they reinforce and enhance brand recognition.
Once they visit the website, the audience will strengthen the associations, made in the same color scheme.
Another thing to note is the use of white as negative space.
While white is already part of Clustermarket’s branding, its usefulness in making other colors shine, like the red and green of the interface buttons, is still ideal.
Like any physical tool, knowing the proper techniques and methods will make your usage of color in your explainer videos or even other video marketing far more efficient and effective.
Let us know some of your favorite color combinations in the animation world below!
