The first time you look at a poster print, you first see its colors. When you print posters, it is usually one of the first things a designer takes into account. The choice of colors for a poster print design determines the mood of the poster and defines it with its character. You can use this to your advantage when designing your own color posters. Different color combinations offer a certain treatment to the eyes and convey certain message. The careful choice of these combinations will determine if your custom poster will be eye-catching and effective.

If however you slept through art class when you were a kid, then these color combinations might be new to you. Yes, colors can be paired with other colors that will complement them. These color schemes have been widely used for posters since people are always attracted to beautiful color schemes. If you are a novice or have forgotten all about this, then here's a little refresh course for the color impaired.

Complimentary colors

The first and most basic color combinations are the complimentary colors. These colors are usually have the opposite hue of each other. This makes both colors appear brighter and more vibrant when you put them together. For the primary colors red, blue and yellow, their complimentary color is the combination of the two other primary colors. For example, the complimentary color for red is the combination of blue and yellow which is green. So the color red will always compliment the color green. Sounds familiar in a holiday sort of way right? Applying this logic, we get blue and orange as a pair and yellow and violet as a pair.

These color combinations are the basic bread and butter for matching colors in custom posters. So use them if your poster design warrants such a combination. Usually these color schemes are safe albeit the red and green combination has some holiday allusions. If you are a newbie, you should never go wrong using this combination for your custom posters. Even grand artists still use this concept today.

Contrasting colors

Contrasting colors are an extended combination for complimentary colors. Since complimentary colors are opposite in hue they contrast. So one color will help emphasize the other. However besides the usual combinations of red and green, blue and orange and yellow and violet you can use contrasting lightness or darkness schemes. The simplest example of this contrasting scheme is black and white. Black and white can always be together since once really does bring out the other. You can expand this concept even further for your color posters by using a light hue of a certain color with a darker hue of the same color. So if you are going to design your full color poster with this concept you can use a dark green with a lighter shade of green like teal. Sea blue or dark blue can team up with a light blue or sky blue. Red can pair up with pink or magenta. It can even be as simple as using white with any other color. These contrasting colors can really provide you with a nice coherent theme. This is all the more useful if the subject for your color poster has a theme color or favorite color. All you have t do is use a lighter or darker shade of it.

Warm and cool colors

Last for basic color combinations are warm and cool colors. Warm colors include red, orange, yellow and any other color between those three. They are usually bright and add warmth to your poster. The message conveyed for warm colors is that of intensity of emotion and activity. Cool colors on the other hand are in the realm of blue, green and violet. They usually lend a darker feel to things, but they offer feelings of calmness, rest and serenity. Using a set of warm colors or a set of cool colors is a good color poster scheme as well. Use the feelings these colors invoke in people when creating your poster design.

Those are some of the basic combinations you can use for color poster printing. There are other more advances techniques, but these should really get you on your feet when it comes to designing your poster. Even for newbies, these combinations are safe to use and will always amount to a decent even wonderfully colorful custom poster print.