When you’re designing a piece in Adobe Illustrator, it’s important to consider the colors you’ll be using. You can use the Color Picker tool to select colors from a spectrum or from a color wheel, but what if you want to select colors that are specific to your project? Here are four tips for selecting colors in Illustrator:

  1. Use Named Colors Named colors are great for when you need to use specific colors frequently in your project. To create a named color, first type the name of the color into the Name field and then press Enter. You can also access named colors by selecting them from the Color Picker tool’s Select menu or by using keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+K and Ctrl+I, respectively).
  2. Use Swatches If you only need a few specific colors for your project, swatches can be a great option. To create a swatch, first select the area of your art that you want to use the color in and then click on the Swatch icon (it looks like two circles connected by an arrow). From there, choose either From Sample or From Image. If you choose From Sample, Illustrator will load up an existing swatch with that color and allow you to edit it as needed. If you choose From Image, Illustrator will load up an image with that color and allow you to edit it as needed. Once you’ve selected your desired swatch, press OK to save it and return to your artwork.
  3. Use CMYK Colors If all of your artwork will be printed in black-and-white (or if black-and-white is part of your design aesthetic), then it’s important to use CMYK colors instead of RGB values when creating art in Illustrator. CMYK stands for Cyan Magenta Yellow Keyword and refers to how different colored ink is mixed together when printing images on paper. RGB values refer only to how ..