How do we choose a colour palette for our bullet journals? In this blog post, Sarah of Stationery Magpie has brought together some great tips that can help you find the perfect colour palette to create a beautiful bullet journal.
Anyone can start a bullet journal and use it for productivity and creativity, but one of the things people find difficult when starting is choosing a good colour palette for a monthly theme. A lot of us might not have even touched pens or markers to design something for years until we pick up a bullet journal and we suddenly need to start again trying to figure out what looks good together!
Well, my best tip for helping you to get your bullet journal looking fabulous is to use a good colour palette consistently for each monthly theme. Consistency is one of the most straightforward tips to follow to make a difference in how your bullet journal ties together. But how do we even start to choose a colour palette? In this blog post, I've brought together some great tips that can help you find the perfect colour palette to create a beautiful bullet journal.
Start with One Base Colour
One of the simplest ways to make a month into a theme and look consistent is to stick one particular colour palette for your bullet journal. You need to start somewhere, so of course, begin with one colour! It might be your favourite colour, or maybe it's one that you haven't reached for before, and you want to try something different. Good for you! Often I invest in brush pens one at a time when planning my next month spreads so I will base my scheme on that particular colour.
For my first few bullet journals this was all I did when choosing a colour scheme. The other bonus is that you don't need to carry around a whole pencil case full of supplies or search around for the exact colour pen to fill in a spread.
Experiment with Swatches
If you want to introduce more than one colour to a theme, the best way to start figuring out what looks good is to test it! Take some time to figure out which colours look good together by testing them on the pages. Scribble little patches of colour together and remember to try different shades of the same colour. That little tweak to the shade might make all the difference.
It's a great idea to use the same paper as your bullet journal because the paper is often different and colours may look a little different on the page or even bleed through. Using the same brand or range of pens is also a good idea as they've often been designed to fit together and if they look uniform on the page together they'll fit together in a colour scheme better.
Check out these amazing swatch layouts!
Match a Scheme to a Material
A really easy way to get a great colour scheme is basically to cheat and copy the scheme of something you're going to use in your monthly! If you're planning on using particular washi tape or set of stickers then, of course, use it and take the time to match up the colours! I planned my whole month of July based on the pattern and colours of my pencil case! And I love how the colour palette has turned out.
One of my other absolute favourite themes was all designed around a sticky note with muted primary colours and again it all worked really well and looked beautifully coherent.
Use the Obvious Choices (Or Go Opposite)
Let's face it there's a reason that vibrant, warm colours come up a lot in winter when we want to be cozy and warm and that bright hot fun colours are all over the place in summer. The seasons and months can have a significant impact on our choice of colour palette. But if you want to be a little different, then you can still do a whole 180. It can look really interesting if you contrast your colours. Think pastels on a spooky Halloween theme or if you hate the summer then go for dark, moody colours to reflect how you feel!
Use a Programme to Find a Palette
If you're still stuck, and you don't have any idea then perhaps you can try out a colour palette generator. With this website, coolors.co you can generate random colour schemes by merely pushing your spacebar. You can even lock in colours, so when you choose one of your base colours the programme will look for schemes that match that. Then, after you've done that all you need to do it to match up your materials just like in my last tip.
Another great resource is Canva's Color Wheel. This program has various options to find a colour palette. you simply choose a base colour then choose a colour combination then viola! If you are already an avid Canva user, you can create your images right from the colour palette! Otherwise, you can match your pens with the colours you've chosen and get started!
Check Out Pinterest
Pinterest is such a great visual platform that is full of amazing colour inspiration. Most of the colour palettes that pop up on Pinterest are wedding colour schemes, but who says you can't use those in a journal?!
You can also check out my special Colour Palettes for Bullet Journal board to get journal specific inspiration with lots of features of Tombow brush pens which are popular in the bullet journal world!
How do you choose your colour palette for your bullet journal? What is one of your favourite colour schemes you've used recently? Check out some of our other amazing bullet journal hacks to upgrade your bullet journal!
Meet the Author
Sarah runs the blog Stationery Magpie where she posts all about stationery, bullet journaling, and productivity. Her day job is teaching English in sunny Mexico although she’s from the UK. You can follow her on Instagram to get a peek inside her bullet journal or sign up to her newsletter to get information about new blog happenings and a monthly offers email with amazing deals and discounts on stationery!
