Color Blocking [Full Guide to In-Your-Face Outfits]
What is Color Blocking?
Color blocking is the art of pairing together multiple blocks of solid bold colors that contrast strongly. The result is one cohesive outfit that stands out due to its stark color contrast and eye-catching composition.
Color blocking is a trend that's been around for a few years now and it's not going anywhere soon. It pairs together two or more bold color “blocks” to create a well-composed outfit.
The blocks are typically large pieces of clothing that are made up of one or maybe two solid and attention-grabbing colors. Pairing two or more very bold and strongly contrasting blocks of color is color blocking at its finest.
Now that we’ve scratched the surface, let’s get into more detail, shall we?
This color blocking crash course will teach you not only the basics, but also provide many tips and little secrets on how to rock color blocking in your day-to-day life.
Color Blocking Vocabulary
Schemes and Palettes
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of color blocking itself, it's important that you understand the vocabulary used to describe color blocking and color schemes.
A color scheme, in color theory terms, refers to any collection of colors chosen from any given color relation. Some examples of color relations include monochromatic, analogous, triadic color schemes, complementary, and so on.
Choosing a few colors and variations that pair and match well, then putting them together into a scheme, results in a color palette.
Each color palette has its own unique characteristic that sets it apart from other color palettes. Here’s an example for a color palette:
We go into much more detail on color palettes in our dedicated article. Check it out here to learn more.
The main idea behind color blocking is to use a color palette that includes two or more bold colors that contrast strongly against each other.
Though this isn’t an easy feat, when done correctly, you create a cohesive-looking outfit with eye-catching color contrast and composition. If you know how to put together a clothing color palette using a few bold colors, you’re ready to color block!
Contrast
It’s important to note that color blocking will only truly be “blocking” if the colors you're pairing contrast strongly enough against each other.
For example, pairing red and blue together would be fine because they are contrasting colors. However, pairing red with burgundy wouldn't work so well because they don’t contrast as much.
There are two types of contrast when it comes to color:
Contrast of hue (color contrast)
Contrast of luminance (difference in brightness)
If two colors are far apart on the color wheel, they have a lot of color contrast. If their hues are very different from each other, it’s very easy to tell two colors apart.
If one color is much brighter than the other, they have much contrast of luminance. Luminance is a fancy word to describe “perceived brightness”. Note that we’re emphasizing the word “perceived” – there’s a difference between actual brightness and perceived brightness.
It’s not that important that you understand the difference right now, but if you’d want to find out more later, you can open this link to our article about contrast. It explains everything in detail.
Canvas and Accent Colors
Canvas colors are those that make up the bulk of your outfit and that function as a type of “canvas” that you can “paint on”. Does that make sense?
Typical canvas colors are neutrals like black, gray, white, and brown but also navy blue, denim, or beige. These colors are the base upon which you add accent colors.
Accents are those that accentuate your outfit (obviously). By doing so, you give your get-up its much-needed character and appeal.
Any color can function as an accent but if you wish to color block, it’s almost mandatory that you accent with bright and bold colors.
The color-blocking trend is most commonly associated with solid, boldly colored tops and jackets (as accents). However, color blocking can be done with almost anything: pants, skirts, jeans, shorts, socks (duh), etc.
The key to making it work is to keep everything else really simple and neutral, so the color-blocked items stand out even more.
How to Color Block an Outfit
Now that you understand the theory, let’s dive into color blocking headfirst.
Easy in-your-face color blocking is the goal, right? So, listen up.
1. Choose Two Contrasting Colors
You'll want to start by combining two colors that contrast quite considerably. You can use any colors, but strong colors picked straight from the color wheel work great for this step.
As an example, let’s choose cyan (blue-green) and magenta (bright purple). Both are very bright, so they don’t have much contrast of luminance. They are, however, very far apart on the color wheel, so they do have a lot of color contrast.
Two colors that strongly contrast each other are magenta and cyan. They color block well.
Pick out at least one piece of clothing in each color and set them aside. Ideally, both pieces of clothing would be worn right next to each other to maximize the effectiveness of contrast (if not, that’s not a deal-breaker).
Make sure that both clothing items are solid (not patterned) and that their color is bright and strong. This is vital to simple color blocking success!
Themed clothes work if the theme’s color pairs well with both color blocks.
2. Find a Suitable Canvas Color
Next, fill up the rest of the outfit using pieces of neutral color. The goal here is to find your canvas color.
Black, gray, or white clothes work well with almost any bold accents, so you’re always good to go with those. We suggest doing so.
Browns and blues might be slightly trickier, but if you follow our guide to color palettes, you’ll quickly understand whether they work for your chosen accents or not.
Let’s add black as a canvas for our example outfit, shall we?
Add black to magenta and cyan and you get a very attention-grabbing color palette.
Get all those pieces of clothing you haven’t used as accents out of your closet and complete your outfit.
If you don’t have enough clothes in these (up to now only) three colors, then add a fourth. Stick to our Golden Rules of Color in Fashion to be sure to choose the right addition.
3. Make Sure the Colors Harmonize
Now that you’ve got all the necessary clothing items out of your wardrobe, you can easily see if the colors work well with each other (or not).
If they do, then you’re all set.
If they don’t pair well, then simply exchange one of the two bold color blocks.
Seriously, that’s all.
Here’s the resulting outfit from our color-blocked palette:
Looks pretty decent, right?
Obviously, you could do a lot to enhance the look of this outfit. And you know what? Let’s talk about how to go about doing that.
Repeating Blocked Colors
Well thought-through outfits repeat colors in multiple garments. That is what makes any get-up truly “cohesive”. Many people tend to forget this.
For example, if you have a tie that is red (or has red in its pattern), repeat the same red by wearing a pocket square of the same color.
If you’re feeling extra fancy, make sure your socks have the same red in them as well. Here’s a photo to prove to you that it makes an outfit truly cohesive:
Now, the outfit above isn’t what you’d typically call “color-blocked”. For that, the accents in red are much too small in proportion to the canvas. Color blocks have to be large, remember?
Check out this color-blocked style instead:
The light blue of our Colorbux socks is repeated in the sweater, making the color look super legit in the context of the outfit. The brown of the jacket (though arguably not an accent color, but rather a secondary canvas) is repeated in the shoes.
What a great color blocking double whammy!
Color Blocking with Patterns
Patterns are a tricky subject in the world of fashion. Though many people love them and wear them often, incorporating patterns into outfits (correctly) isn’t an easy task.
More often than not, patterns tend to be made up of different shades, tints, and tones of various hues – all arranged to lines, squares, dots, and whatnot. This makes pairing patterned clothes with other items quite difficult.
Now, as we’ve discussed before, color blocking is typically done with only solid-colored pieces of clothing. This should exclude patterns (and themes/prints) altogether, shouldn’t it?
Well, yes and no. Many patterns look quite monotonous from afar, so they could pass off as a solid. Also, sometimes patterns are made up of such large lines or shapes that the piece of clothing in question color-blocks in itself already.
Imagine a sweater that is part red, part purple, and part blue. All parts are split apart by some intricate design, forming a large pattern. Now imagine putting together an outfit using that sweater.
Tough, right?
Yes, this makes color blocking more difficult than usual. But it also makes it easier in a way.
The good thing (when having to work with multi-colored pieces of clothing) is that the piece in question predefines the colors you must focus on. It takes care of the brain work, so to say.
As soon as you understand this, the rest of the process is easy:
Repeat and reuse colors from the pattern elsewhere in your outfit.
Opt for a neutral canvas color – one that harmonizes with the pattern’s colors.
Make the patterned (or themed/printed) garment the focal point of the whole get-up. Make sure that it draws/gets the most attention.
Though not classic color-blocking, the outfit in the image above illustrates how to go about pairing with patterns and how to get them to be the focus of the desired style.
It’s important that none of the colors in the pattern clash with any of the colors in the rest of your outfit. This can happen quite easily if you don’t pay attention.
If you keep an eye on these pointers, it’ll be a breeze for you to put together color-blocked outfits using patterns.
Bold Versus Subdued Color Blocking
Bright colors block well with each other (and also typically look great when done correctly). However, bright colors are only effective if the color combinations don't clash too much because otherwise your outfit won't look cohesive.
Oftentimes, people don’t have many super flashy clothing items in their closet. If you’re one of those people, you’ll find it hard to put together a bold color-blocked get-up.
Color blocking doesn’t always have to be bold! You can also use lighter, less saturated colors for more toned-down outfits that still get their point across.
Note that we wrote “lighter”. As we’ve already discussed, it’s typically best to color block with colors that have high “perceived brightness”.
Well, light colors like rose (light red), baby blue, or mint (light blue-green), are great alternatives to color block with because they have high perceived brightness (due to their lightness). Why not try some of those out?
Just remember to stick to solid colors, ok? And also make sure the colors harmonize.
In any case, color blocking with less bold colors is certainly more low-key, so go ahead and wear it on days when you want to keep things a bit more casual!
If color blocking intimidates you, start small by branching out into lighter colors while sticking to simple color combinations. Try not to opt for overly flashy colors or too many different colors at once if you’re not quite ready for it yet.
Going for less flashy or in-your-face color combos makes putting together a color-blocked outfit quite a bit easier. Just remember the 10 Golden Rules for Color in Fashion - they make color pairing a breeze.
Color-Blocked Style
Color-blocked outfits are trendy, bold, and in your face! If you want to give color blocking a try but don’t know where to start, we’ve given you a guide for some ideas on how to not just get started with color blocking, but to master it.
Of course, there are infinite possibilities when it comes to color blocking and color schemes. But by using the pointers we’ve outlined in this article (and our many other posts), you should be able to quickly put together get-ups easily and effectively.
And that’s what we at Colorbux are all about: Getting you places by teaching you color.
We give you the keys to the Lambo so that you know what you’re doing when it comes to style and fashion. And now that you’ve learned (almost) all there is to know about color blocking, go knock some socks off!
Also, if you’d like to show your appreciation, we’d seriously enjoy a nice Google review. It would help us out a bunch since we’re pretty slim (to say the least) when it comes to online feedback on third-party platforms.
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