I finally figured out why my logos always looked muddy

So I been doing graphic design for about 3 years now and always struggled with logos that just looked... off. Last week I had a client who kept saying my greens looked "sickly" and blues looked "flat" no matter what I tried. After like 5 revisions I finally realized I was picking colors from the middle of the wheel instead of using saturation properly. Turns out I was desaturating everything by accident thinking I was being "safe." Has anyone else had that moment where you realized you didn't understand saturation at all?

2 comments

2 Comments

lee_barnes7010d ago

Ever look at the hex codes themselves? I started checking the second two digits in a color's hex value. If they're low numbers like 33 or 44, that color is gonna look like mud no matter what hue you pick. Learned that when I was trying to match a company's sky blue to their old business cards. Kept picking #4488CC thinking it was safe. Nope. Had to bump those middle numbers way up before it popped right.

max38810d ago

Tried the same thing for way too long. Switching to HSB sliders instead of RGB was the fix that clicked for me, lets you see saturation and brightness separate from the actual color.