4 steps to choosing color for your non printed clothing designs

Plus the colors you should never leave out

If you’re designing non printed apparel one of the most important steps is choosing fabric colors. 

Picking colors might seem easy, but missing an important color can mean losing sales, and picking the wrong combination of colors can make your collection look inexpensive.  

Follow my guide to make sure you have the colors your customer is looking for.

Here are the four steps to choosing color:

Step 1:  Cover your basics first. 

Most designers love a pop of color.  But the basics are almost always going to be your big sellers.  If you’re designing pants, you’ll need a Khaki.  If you’re designing polos, you’ll probably want a Black. 

Missing out on these basic colors means lost sales. Get a list of the most common best sellers you should never leave out here.

Step 2: Layer on pops of color. 

Now that you’ve got your basics down, it’s time for the fun part.  Consult your color palette and add in your favorite colors.  Don’t have a color palette?  Now’s the time to make one.  If you already have prints designed, make sure your solid colors go well with your prints.

Step 3: Make sure your colors look nice together. 

Once you’ve picked your colors, make sure they lay nicely together.  You want to make sure that none of the colors clash and that you have different levels of brights and darks. A palette of too similar colors can look dull and inexpensive.

Here’s how this process of picking colors and troubleshooting issues might go:

First, pick your basics

Grab all your must-haves. For more info on colors that tend to be best sellers, download my free list here.

Next, layer in your fashion colors

Here we’ve added in four fun new colors, but the palette looks dull and uninteresting because the new colors are all similar levels of bright and darkness.

Troubleshoot any issues

Here we’ve replaced the four new colors with brighter options. The palette doesn’t look dull anymore, but now it’s too bright. Too many bright colors start to look inexpensive.

Let’s try again.

Fine tune your palette

Adjust the palette until you’re happy with the results.

This palette is sophisticated and visually interesting with varying levels of bright and darkness.

Step 4.  Send your color standards to your factory to begin lab dips. 

Once you’re happy with your palette, send your color standards to your factory to start your lab dips.  If you’re not sure the best way to organize your colors to be dipped, get my lab dip chart here.

BONUS TIPS

Check for these common issues before finalizing your palette:

1. Are any of the colors too similar? Check that none of the colors in your palette look the same. Of course you’ll want to make sure the blues look different, but check across colors, too. Make sure your navy isn’t so dark it’s starting to compete with your black, or that the aqua isn’t too close to your green.

2. Do the colors clash? Lay every color next to each other to make sure that they all look nice together. Keep an extra eye on pinks with oranges and greens with blues as these colors can be the worst offenders.

3. Did you run a similar color last season? It can be tempting to replace last years blue with your new favorite blue, but if you’re carrying the same style over from last season you’ll want to make sure the colors you’re choosing this season aren’t too similar.

   Ideally you want your customer to buy BOTH blues, so you want them to be different enough that they both have a reason to exist in his closet. Make sure any colors you’re replacing look different enough from last season that your customer may want to buy them both.

Don’t miss out on an easy sale

Grab your free list of the 21 most common best selling colors across four different categories below!

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