Monochrome

Monochrome colour schemes are colour palettes that employ the use of colour only within a, so to speak, single slice of the colour wheel pie, perhaps including white as the lightest tint and black as the darkest shade.

 

Analogous

Adjacent colours on the colour wheel are known as analogous colours. They are used to create pleasing and harmonious effects, though they run the risk of becoming quite boring.

Complementary

Complementary colours are a pair of colours directly opposite each other on the colour wheel. They are used to highlight differences and create dynamism.

Split Complementary

Split complementaries involve one colour and the two colours adjacent to the one directly complementary to it. It creates a less jarring contrast and has a mellower effect.

 

 

Triad Harmony

Triads are colour palettes of three colours spaced equally from each other on the colour wheel. They are usually employed in character design to show the idea of a spectrum, particularly RGB or CMY triads, because they convey a range of elemental personality archetypes.

 

Tetrad Harmony

Also known as double complementaries, they consist of two complementary pairs the same distance apart from each other. (Square) tetrad harmonies can be employed similarly to triads but tetrads are more commonly used as complementary pairs. In characters, a pair of characters can take on one side of each complementary each (eg, red and blue for one character and yellow and green for the other) to emphasize opposition or ‘completing’ each other.