Do you struggle with creating color palettes? It can be difficult to decide what looks best, or finding the perfect hues to match colors you’ve already selected. With this four-step tutorial, our creative services Greenville NC team will show you how to simplify the entire process and take the stress of finding colors off your plate.

Step One: Create Initial Shapes

To start things off, we’re going to create two shapes. For this example we’re using circles, but any shape will do. Draw your first shape to the left and duplicate it by holding “Shift + Option” and dragging it to the right. Leave a decent amount of space between the two; this will be helpful later on for this creative service Greenville NC. Set the fill color of your “start shape” (the one on the left) to the lightest color you want to include in the palette. Once that’s done, select your “finish shape” (the one on the right) and set its fill color to the darkest color you want to include in your final palette. Now you’re ready to move on to step two.

Step Two: Set Blend Options

Deselect both shapes and double-click the “Blend Tool” inside your tool panel on the left. This will prompt a Blend Options dialog box to appear. Use the “Spacing” drop-down to change the selection to the “Specified Steps” option. The number to the right of Specified Steps will determine how many new colors are made between your original two shapes. The amount entered here is completely up to you. For this example of creative services Greenville NC, however, we will be using four steps. Leave the orientation as its default and click OK.

Step Three: Creating Blends

Once you’ve confirmed the amount of steps between colors, use your Blend Tool to click on the start shape, followed by the finish shape. This will automatically create the same number of shapes with various color tones between the two original shapes we created in step one.

Step Four: Separating Shapes

Let’s say you’ve made it this far in the process and realize you’re not impressed by your original color selection. Although this creative services Greenville NC technique is super simple, we don’t want to waste time going back and starting from step one again. Luckily, with the blend still made, you are able to use the “Direct Select Tool” to click into this new group and alter the colors of both the start and finish shapes. This will automatically change the hues within the middle section of the blend as well.Now that your blend has been made and all of your shapes have their respective color fills, it’s time to separate the group and make the shapes independent from each other. Select the group of shapes, then visit the top of your screen to the Object header, scroll down to Expand Appearance, then Object again and scroll down to Expand. Lastly, go back to Object and Ungroup the entire selection. You now have the ability to move each shape independently, sample each color, or add the entire palette to your Swatches Panel.

Step Five: Creating New Color Group

To add all of your new colors to your Swatches Panel, select all of the shapes that were made with the blend (once they’ve been ungrouped) and visit the top left of your screen as if you were going to select a new fill color. Click the fill color drop down, then the hamburger menu to the right of the panel, scroll down and select “New Color Group.” From here, you will be able to rename the color group and have the ability to select any of these new colors from your swatches at any time within the same document.

Creative Services Greenville NC | Red Shark Digital

As part of the creative services Greenville NC team here at Red Shark Digital, I use color on a daily basis. Small techniques such as the one you just learned not only help to speed up my work process, but also ensure that the color palettes I create are accurate. Both of which are extremely important when working with client projects and in-house design projects. I hope this tutorial has helped you in doing the same, and if you enjoyed this format, be sure to check out more of our design tutorials on our YouTube channel.