4 Essential Tools to Help You Select a Colour Palette for Your Data Visualisation
Sometimes the smallest of things can take a lot longer than we think. When building Data visualisations, we will reach a point where we need to decide on a colour scheme – something that may seem simple but is very important and can either make your data visualisation flop or pop. At this stage we can often spend hours choosing the right shade of blue or checking whether we have enough contrast between colours.
When choosing the right colour palette for a data visualisation we need to consider numerous factors, including the type of visualisation, the audience, colour contrast, colour blindness and much more. Understanding these various factors ensures that the story we are trying to tell through our data visualisations is getting across to the reader in the best possible way.
There are many tools available online that can help simplify the colour selection process. Within this article, we will cover four powerful tools you can add to your data scientist/analyst toolbox.
Coolors.co
Coolors.co provides a very easy-to-use tool that allows you to generate colour schemes for your projects. Even though it is mainly aimed at banding, it can easily be used for data visualisations.
When you are in the app, all you have to do to generate a new palette is hit the spacebar. You can repeat this until you find a palette you like. If you find a colour you like but don't like the other colours, you can lock that colour, hit the spacebar and regenerate the remaining colours.
With the free version, you are limited to generating palettes containing five colours, and the available tools are also limited, such as being able to use colour theory rules.
In addition to generating palettes, you can browse through palettes that other users have generated and shared with the colours community. This allows you to see what is trending and popular at the moment.
ColorBrewer 2.0
If you plan to use maps in your data visualisations, you may want to look at ColorBrewer 2.0. This free online tool has been designed and developed by Professor Cynthia Brewer at Pennsylvania State University as a tool for creating compelling and accessible colour maps for anyone involved in creating maps.
You can choose to select palettes from sequential, diverging and qualitative colour schemes. The selection of which will depend on what you are planning to show in your data visualisation.
As it has been designed with cartographers in mind, you can preview each of the available colour palettes within the context of a map.
When looking at colour palettes side by side, it may be easy to distinguish between each colour. However, when dealing with a map, colours that are not next to each other on the palette may be next to each other on the map. Therefore it is important to understand if your chosen palette will work with your data on a map.
Paletton
Paletton is a free tool that helps you pick colour palettes for your designs, visualisations and presentations. When you arrive on the website, you are presented with an interactive colour wheel with various options.
When starting out, it is best to have an idea of what base colour you are looking to use. For example, this might be based on existing branding for you or for the company you work with. You can then explore the different colour relationships, including monochromatic, adjacent, triad, and tetrad. All of which change the feel of your chosen colour palette.
One of the nice features of Paletton is the ability to preview your chosen colour scheme applied to a simple website or a graphic. This helps you get an idea of how your chosen colour palette looks. Additionally, it provides an option to simulate colour blindness, which is essential to making sure your visualisations are accessible to everyone.
Leonardo
Adobe's Leonardo is a great open-source tool that allows designers, data scientists, and engineers to select, visualise and analyse chosen colour palettes.
Leonardo seems to be the most comprehensive and technical of the tools I have looked at for generating colour palettes. It allows you to analyze the colours in colour space, contrast and accessibility.
When you land on the website, you can choose whether you want to focus on colour design for user interfaces, data visualisations or access tools to compare and evaluate colours.
Within the "Color Scales" section, we can visualise colour palettes from sequential, diverging and qualitative schemes on three key data charts: a heatmap, scatterplot and a map. This provides a clear indication of how well the visualisation will look with your chosen scheme.
For a more in-depth look at Leonardo, check out the articles below
Summary
Within this article, we have covered four powerful tools that can help you select and analyse your chosen colour palette before you finalise your data visualisation. These tools will make a make a nice addition to your toolset, and can help speed up the process of selecting appropriate colours that is accessible to all.
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