Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Tip: Choosing a Color Palette/Theme

Many Android apps out there don't look that well. While it's not impossible to make a great looking app. It's difficult if you're a lone developer with little designer skills. 


A big reason why developers (without design sense) make poor looking apps is because it's difficult to get a consistent color theme. In short, developers suck at picking colors. This shouldn't discourage you though. A great way to overcome this problem is to have other people that are good at picking colors do it for you, for free.


There's a site called Colour Lovers which has been indispensable as a tool for finding a good color themes. Try to stick with a clean palette of 3-5 colors (+ black and white) and use only those colors throughout the application.


Of course you'll want to tag these colors as color resources in your app.

http://www.colourlovers.com/


Android Color Palette (http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/1392493/Android)



res/colors_palette.xml

    #ff464D5C
    #ffA4C639
    #ffD1E29C
    #ffE4EBCE
    #ffF0F0F0



Of course when referencing color resources in xml use the @color/name syntax.

3 comments:

  1. ebonics_444? Hahah what

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  2. This color scheme designer ( link ), linked from the blog you linked to, is really interesting. If you put it in the complement mode and rotate around the circle, you'll quickly identify very common color combinations. i.e. blue pairs with orange, purple with yellow, green with red, etc. The other modes are interesting too.

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