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Just a fun little article/tutorial for anyone interested in how to customize tumblr themes (in terms of colour choices). So chuck out those tacky background patterns and dull-looking, ill-matched colour combos and switch in for a chic, simple, flattering look!
[Frankly speaking, I really doubt many are going to read this but I was bored and thought this would be interesting to write.] So let us begin!
What type of blog is your blog?
Now you may think you don’t want to “label” your blog, but when it comes to choosing a theme and customization… you need to label your blog. Everyone has their style. If you’re not sure, go to your archives and take a look. Decide based on type of images (photos, art, edits, etc), style of images (hipster photos, monochrome, minimalistic art, fandom edits etc) and tone of images (soft-hued/dreamy photos, bright neon art, monochrome, saturated edits etc).
Choosing the background
The rule of thumb, “your theme should not wear your blog, your blog should wear your theme”. Thus, I usually like to keep my backgrounds simple, so to make my blog content stand out. I also like to go with either black, white or light (VERY light) grey because they match well with a variety of colours.
Stay away from overly colourful, bold, intricate patterns. Those just drowns out your content because they can be really tacky and overwhelming. Also stay away from backgrounds that could potentially blend the text in.
Too many combinations of patterns are not too good either. It gets too complicated. The ultimate message: STAY MINIMAL/SIMPLE.
Fandom blogs
If you have a fandom blog, look at the type of edits you usually have. Are they dull colours or bright saturated colours? If they’re generally bright saturated colours or if you have a variety of colour tones, go for a simple light background (nothing too obnoxious like peach or dark rose) and then choose a darker colour to match the links
For example, planets-bend-between-us, first, look at the archive:
See how majority of these have a soft pink/purple hue? Look at the colour schemes for the links at the top menu:
It’s all soft, dull, pastel colours. Moreover, the sidebar image is edited to match that tone. It’s combined with a plain white background and dark menu bar to make the colours stand out.
Some fandom sites also just use really super light unsaturated shades of colours (dull pink, orange, green etc) as backgrounds and then just make everything else different shades darker. Not so fond of this combination as I think it’s boring most of the time, though if done right, it can be gorgeous. For example (soeuls):
What makes this really stand out is the sidebar image and the dark, rich brown of the links that really compliment the colours. However, as etatvivant kindly points out, some of the colour choices are too faint (not enough contrast) thus it’s hard to read. It’s definitely an important factor to take that into account! Nobody will want to search your tags or text posts if your content is hard to read.
Photoblogs
I’m not going to touch too much on photoblogs since photoblogs generally look best with white/black/light grey background and no colour. It just really brings out the colours of the photos and puts emphasis on the photos (not the theme).
Anime/Art/Manga blogs
This can get difficult. First, figure out what your style of art is. For example, I like bright colours and fantasy/dreamy art (here), Dom likes design/minimalistic art (here) and Shayla posts neon, bright Japanese art (here). And each of their theme compliments the style of art they post.
For example, Dom’s theme is perfect for her style:
Okay, the white is very fitting because most of the art isn’t particularly eroguro, melancholic, dark etc etc. So the white will make the art stand out. No patterns because the patterns could potentially take away the attention from the art.
It’s all pretty bright and fun. The peach and blue colours for the links work because those are the most prevalent colours in her art. The icon matches with the pink because of the contrast. If there was too much warm-hues, it would’ve felt too washed out so the splash of blue is great.
Next, most themes come with sidebar images so start with that. If you’re going to choose a sidebar image, then the colour scheme should base off of that.
For example, in my chorale theme preview (here)
The sidebar image has a touch of blue, purple, green and yellows. As you can see, the links are similar colours to that and the text post links (aqua) and permalink links (lime green) all play to that. I particularly used more blue because the blue is less prevalent in the sidebar image. So using more blue meant the links stood out more.
For my dance with death preview (here)
I used yellow for the sidebar links because I wanted to emphasize the yellow in the flowers. If it were pink or blue, it would be too much since the sidebar background already had a lot of pink or blue. As for the text post links, they’re dark green… again to emphasize the rare green in the sidebar links. Once hover, they are dark pink which matches the pink in the flower.
Overall idea:
If you are including a sidebar image, play to it. Emphasize the little bits of colours (NOT the dominant colours).
If you aren’t using a sidebar image, stay simple and emphasize the colours and style of the art you post. Lots of colourful art? Choose a tone (either warm or cold) and colour the links in those colours.
If you aren’t using a sidebar image but your userpic is showing in the theme, contrast with your userpic (like Dom and my personal blog).
How to use colour palettes
Still iffy about colour schemes? Look at colour palettes. I particularly recommend mine, rafferty, zombiedisco, jjolimei, nobokkan and ifollowtherabbit. But how to you use them?
Generally, I don’t use colours from the palette for the background. I choose my own background colours and patterns (usually black, light/almost-white grey or white) and then the other colours, I would use from colour palettes. Though sometimes, I keep my menu bars either black or white since colours match those colours very well.
For example, the current theme uses the following palette I made (most of the palettes I make are specifically made with tumblr themes in mind):
I want a white background for a bright look, black highlights to give it a sleek, more professional look. Then I just added in splashes of pink, purple and yellow in the links since those colours compliments black very well.
Another example, I want to use this colour palette (here)
I want the orange, blue and yellows to be highlights of my theme (think: links, navigation, permalinks etc) and maybe white background to keep the bright, vibrant, summer-y feel of this palette.
Creating your own palette
Most importantly, know your colour wheel!
Complimentary colours (colours opposite each other) cannot go unmentioned. I personally like purple and yellow together, and blue and orange is a pretty awesome combination too. But red and green (please, no Christmas colours UNLESS it’s the season) is generally tacky.
The trick to making complimentary colours work is the shade and tone. If one colour is dull, then the other should be dull as well.
If one colour is vibrant, the other should be as well.
The other combination is colours side by side. Though generally, it’s harder to have a good combination. Varying shades of one colour works a lot better. But try to match the tones and play with contrasting brightness.
For inspiration, I highly recommend looking at lots of art! I particularly like looking at artists on pixiv or drawr because they make some interesting colour combinations (for shadowing, particularly) that I would never have thought before. Some of my favourite colour inspirations are:
THE END
Hopefully, that was helpful! I squeezed out as much conventions I go by as I could. Feedback is most welcomed.
