When youre ready to start designing in InDesign, you may already have your brand colors set in place.
How to Prepare Your Colors
We are going to create a mood board for our color scheme.
First, you better find a selection of images.
Using a site likeUnsplashoranother stock photography site, collect multiple images that use colors you like.
Think of the mood the colors suggest and let that influence your selection.
back up your downloaded photos in a dedicated folder for easy access.
OpenInDesignand open a new document.
It can be any size.
Hold downShiftwhile drawing the frame to keep it square.
Duplicate your frame by holdingAltwhile clicking and dragging the frame.
Line up your new frame with a small gap next to the original.
Duplicate the frames until you have one frame per image youve downloaded.
In the dialog box, navigate to your downloaded images and select one, then selectOpen.
The image will be placed in the frame, but it will be full-sized and cropped by the frame.
To resize the image to fit the frame, right-click and chooseFitting>Fit Frame Proportionally.
Fill the rest of your frames with your collection of color images.
Just make a large frame andPlacethe image into the frame in the same way.
This will open a window where you’ve got the option to create the color palette.
This is the automated default Adobe supplies based on the images colors.
The color swatches also feature down the side along with each colors HEX code.
See thedifferences between InDesign and Illustratorand which you should use for your designs.
you could change the selected swatches in two ways.
The color swatches will update as you move the eyedroppers.
The second way to change the automated color palette results is by clicking on theColor Mooddropdown menu.
Changing the Color Mood will default to hues and shades that are attributed to that style from your photo.
you’ve got the option to then still move individual color selections within the new Color Mood choices.
At the bottom of theExtract from Imagewindow is a button to back up your color palette.
If youre happy with the colors, selectSave to CC Libraries.
A small popup will saySaved, but youll have to manually kill the Extract from Image dialog box.
To kick off the Libraries go toWindow>CC Libraries.
This process will be similar or the same within other Adobe programs.
The CC Libraries may store vectors, colors, or other things youve custom-designed and saved.
Youll see your newly saved color palette within the Libraries window.
Open Swatches inWindow>Swatches, then select your chosen color.
TheForegroundcolor swatch in the toolbar will change to the selected color.
Double-click another color in the Libraries to change it.
Customize Your InDesign Color Schemes
Creating native color palettes is easy in Adobe InDesign.
you’re free to edit and adapt the palette to fit your color guidelines more appropriately.
Or you might change the entire mood of your design with different colors.
Coloring has never been so easy.
