Switched from warm to cool undertones and it fixed everything

I spent like 6 months building palettes around warm oranges and yellows because I thought they felt cozy and inviting. But every time I put a design together it just looked kind of muddy and off to me. Then a friend on a Discord server pointed out that my base colors were all pulling yellow and clashing with the neutral grays I was using. She showed me her version with the same layout but swapped to cool blues and a soft mint green and it was night and day. I tried it on a landing page mockup and suddenly the white space felt crisp and the text popped without any heavy shadows. Now I check my undertones on every new palette with a quick side by side test. Anyone else find that warm tones just don't work with certain types of projects like tech or minimalist layouts?

2 comments

2 Comments

avery36619h ago

My color theory professor in college drilled into us that warm tones can work for tech if you push them into peach or coral territory instead of straight orange. I tried that on a fitness app last year and it actually looked decent against the white background. But honestly for most minimal or tech stuff I stick with cool tones now after messing up a client's dashboard three times with warm yellows. The side by side test you mentioned is a lifesaver. I usually put a pure white square next to my chosen color and if the white looks yellowish I know I need to pivot.

joseph_west5923h ago

Oh man, warm tones are the worst for tech stuff. I tried a warm palette on a software dashboard once and it looked like a 90s website threw up on the screen. The whites get all dingy and the text just sinks into the background instead of standing out. Cool tones give that clean, modern feel that minimalist layouts need to actually work. Once I switched to checking undertones with a simple side by side test, my designs stopped looking like muddy messes.

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