Choosing Colors

In a chart, color helps to communicate a message by setting the scene and tone. It creates an emotional connection between the data and audience.

We can identify three main components in color:

• Hue is the dominant color wavelength. Hue identifies color family or color name (such as red, green, purple, etc.).

• Saturation describes the intensity of a color. Saturation defines how pure a color is.

• Brightness is a measure of how light or dark a color appears.

Color palettes

Consider the following color palettes:

• Sequential color palettes organize quantitative data from high to low using a single color in various gradients or saturations. We can use this type of palette to show a progression rather than a contrast.

• Diverging color palettes highlight the ranges of quantitative data by using two contrasting hues on the extremes and a lighter-tinted mixture to highlight the middle range. A diverging palette shows where data is on a ...