This guest post was written by Corissa McClay for MakerCraft.

Color in jewelry is crucial, but when you have too many options, sometimes it’s hard to use. Which colors go together? How can you get contrast without the colors clashing? Where’s the line between colorful harmony and an assault on your eyes? I know a thing or two about color theory for jewelry, so if you want to improve your designs, read on!

The Basics

This is the color wheel:

All those dots of color add up to a wealth of design information. From here we can tell what color necklace you should pick if you’re wearing a blue sweater, or what colors to place next to each other for extra sparkle.

But how do we get there? There’s so many ways you can combine these colors, and that doesn’t even cover all the shades (pure color mixed with black)  and tints (pure color mixed with white) in between them. It’s easy to get lost in all the options.Luckily, we have a road map, and that’s the specific ways of combining certain groups of colors. There’s a lot of them, ranging from a fairly simple monochromatic set, to split-complement or modified triads. The two I’d like to start with are monochromatic and analogous.

Monochromatic simply means that you are only using one color. However, you also have access to all the shades and tints of that color. It’s a combination that’s easy on the eyes, and easy to design.

This narrow range of color makes it very easy to use while still giving you choice. It also makes it easy to pair with an outfit or other jewelry, since there are very few competing colors.

Analogous is a grouping of colors, usually three or four, that are adjacent on the color wheel.

Small groups of colors that are near each other on the color wheel naturally work together. Using an analogous color scheme gives you a bit more freedom in color choice. Getting the balance right between the colors could be tricky, but when it’s done right you can get great results.

Suggestion: Pair a couple mostly cool colors (blues and darker greens) with a nearby warm color (yellow-green). The cool colors form a solid, multi-colored base, and the warm color provides just enough contrast to be interesting.

Analogous color palettes can also be applied to combinations of jewelry and clothes.Find the dominant color of your outfit on the color wheel, then count two colors over. Jewelry in that color is almost guaranteed to look great with your outfit!

This is just a taste of the options available to you. In the next post I’ll go over complementary and triad palettes. Later on we’ll also go deeper into how you can use these themes to pair outfits with jewelry. In the meantime, play with these two themes. Share your favorite combinations in comments, or send in your designs. We’ll feature some of our
favorites in later blog posts.