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Make Bright Colors Pop

by Vivian Masket | 12 years ago

Hi Everyone! I’m Vivian Masket and I don’t know about you, but I love color! I can spend hours poring over color combos in magazines, on Pinterest, and in the paint aisle in home improvement stores. I love that a simple combination of colors can create a mood, evoking happiness or sadness, a feeling of peace, or any other possible emotion.

There are many types of color combos that I love – monochromatic, rainbow, ombre, etc. - but my absolute favorite combos include bright colors against neutral backgrounds. In particular, I love looking at bright colors placed atop a black background. The black makes the bright colors pop, grabbing the eye immediately and attracting the viewer’s attention.

Here’s an example of a simple layout I created on a black cardstock background, using just one journaling card and three lobsters die cut from a tone-on-tone red patterned paper:

White and kraft are the main go-to neutrals in the papercrafting world, but for me, black holds an equal position at the neutrals’ table. I especially love black when I am creating a no-photo layout, as I can vividly highlight my embellishments against black, making them powerful stand-ins for the absent photos. Five brightly-colored die cut houses pop off the black page below, helping to tell my story by supporting both the theme and the mood of my journaling:

This brights-on-black color technique also works well on cards. I love using this color combo when I want to use lots of embellishments on a card, as none of them can fade into the background against the black:

Are you already using black backgrounds for your layouts and cards? If not, consider giving a brights-on-black color combo a try on your next project!

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