Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Power of Punchy Color Combinations

Yesterday's Sharpie-colored banner cards showed the value of bright, punchy colors on a white card base. Bright, happy colors make bright, happy cards...color definitely affects the mood of a card, perhaps more powerfully than any other design element, and in these cold, gray days of Ohio winter, I find myself drawn to brighter colors more than usual!

Sharpies are extremely vivid, but so are some of the Memento inks...and it's certainly quicker to stamp in color than to color in stamped images. Hero Arts' banner set gives you options for coloring in (as yesterday's cards showed) or for stamping images in color.



To keep this high-contrast color combination from being too cluttered or visually confusing, I used one strongly-patterned banner stamp repeatedly. Mixing and matching patterns with these colors would have been jarring, indeed.

Also note that the banner is small enough that a repetition of five fits perfectly on the standard card base in a landscape orientation...where yesterday's portrait cards fit three. Odd numbers really do work best--generally speaking--especially with clean-and-simple designs.

Happy Tuesday!



11 comments:

  1. Very nice! I like the color combo.

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  2. Here we go again. I didn't think I needed a banner stamp set, but it appears that just maybe I do! Love the cards from yesterday and today, and the fact that you could use them for so many occasions. Lovely colors, Susan, for both days.

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  3. Love the banners......I was hooked as soon as I saw them! I enjoy your quick and simple cards and have come to learn, after many mistakes, that LESS, can definitely be more! I'm in Ohio as well, where we've seen more rain than snow here in Columbus and have a 24 y.o. son with autism. I really enjoy your blog.....thanks!

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  4. Wonderful card. thank you for always including some sort of design tip with your posts. I feel like I am not only getting eye candy when I come here, but also a little mini lesson. This is all new to me, and I am learning so much from your tips.

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  5. Love this banner card! Those two colors have a lot of fun impact together. I'm excited about your selling a few box-o-goodies. It's so true that one person's discards are another person's delights so it's always good to pass things on!

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  6. What a great banner card! Very nice. I MUST get those stamps. :) I receive your blog a day late because it is delivered on a feed via my email. Did I miss your grab bags? They sounded very tempting.

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  7. Really enjoyed today's and yesterday's banner cards. I love the geometric balance of them. Lovely choice of colors, too.

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  8. Realy loved this card as well as almost all your others. Would have loved yesterdays cards just as much but they were just too Clean & Simple for me. Is there such a thing as too clean and simple??

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  9. Nice! This design in black & red (or yellow) would make a nice card for a racing fan, too. ;-)

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  10. Your banner cards are wonderful, both yesterday`s and todays, especially because you chose punchy colours - which is of course what banners should have. The grab bags are a great idea too.

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!