4 Ways To Choose The Perfect Event Colour Scheme Combination

Whether you want to choose event colour schemes, your venue or your decor theme first, there are four ways for you to successfully and even rather quickly and easily, consider, choose and research the colours that feature in your special event.

1. Consider the venue and theme
Both a "blank canvas" industrial warehouse and a city hotel function room can be decorated in any colour although, surprisingly, not necessarily every type of decor theme.

By comparison, a turn-of-the-century rowing club shed calls for a vintage theme or rustic colour schemes of cream, green, brown and muted shades.

Indian celebrations are famous for their flamboyant, joyous use of colour - pinks, purples, golds, oranges, turquoises and yellows - and their multiple-day ceremonies may require a venue that gives you more flexibility. 

2. When you've booked the venue but not the event theme
If you've booked your venue but haven't picked a decor theme, look for inspiration at the colours in the venue paintwork, artworks, light fittings, or the views. Do you look out to a city skyline, water or garden, for example?

You could also consider the season your event date falls within. White, silver and deep green work well for winter-time events, springtime parties calls for soft pastels, summertime festivities sport more exuberant colours while autumn events typically features rich reds, copper and browns.

3. Is your company logo colour suitable for your event colour theme?
It would seem to be the obvious and easiest option, using your company Pantone colour as the colour scheme, but not necessarily.... 

Some colours are less commonly available to hire, forcing you to search harder to source suitable decor from event hire companies, or to pay extra in custom orders to get the right shade. Greenpeace's lime-green logo is not readily matched in existing colour event hire items, for example.

Two of the "safest" colour choices to ensure your colour scheme doesn't offend anyone are blue and orange, which are nearly universally well-regarded colours.

Other logo colour combinations present challenges in a huge venue. For example, yellow and black are the logo colours for these five brands: Commonwealth Bank, JB Hi-Fi, Yellow Tail Wines and the Richmond Tigers football team alone.

You'd need a tremendous amount of branding to emphasise which company you're representing. 

In another example, the forest green of Landrover, Starbucks, TicTac or Lacoste could make your venue look like a St Patrick's Day event if you didn't rein it in.

However, the clever marketing gurus at Heineken have harnessed both its green background and iconic red star to capture attention at Christmastime.

4. Still bamboozled by colour choices? Get instant, free inspiration from an expert online colour wheel widget by Adobe that lets you move the interactive cursor around the wheel to get five scientifically correct shades.

Have a play! See what sort of exciting colour options you get from the complementary, compound, analogous, triad and monochromatic shades.

Each colour gives you the RGB and HEX codes which you can use to get the correct shade of colour to give your designer for your invitations, and/or your stylist for table linens, sashes, flowers, lighting, sweets and so on.

Enjoyed this? Discover 7 ways to create maximum visual impact at your event.