Orange Color Schemes

Orange Color Schemes derived from the Color Wheel

Use this guide to orange color schemes selected from the color wheel to stretch you color interior decorating skills, use a color that is often misunderstood and forgotten about. Orange is a fabulous color full of surprises. Go and try out a few of these color schemes for yourself, play around with the hues and see what you can create for yourself.

Orange is coming into our homes more frequently, you may say it has already been here with peach and apricot, but the bold vibrant orange has sneaked in the back door, it is often teamed with neutrals like gray, or white.

An orange monochromatic color scheme provides a simple happy feeling to a room.

How is this for a dazzling orange stairway.

How is this for a dazzling orange stairway.

An orange and blue complementary color scheme provides wonderful contrast, one of the colors should dominate and the other used as an accent.

An orange sofa for example, accented with cobalt blue cushions. This provides a refreshing combination.

An orange, blue -green and blue -violet split complementary color scheme allows you to introduce other colors whilst still retaining a high contrast scheme. This works well with floral fabrics, using them for drapery or upholstery. The combination is assertive and exuberant.

Orange, violet and green, a triadic color scheme creates a bold ad assertive use of orange based on a strong chroma (brightness of the color) but if used with a tint (white added to a color) we get quite a different feel, apricot, mauve and mint creates a warm welcoming use of the color.

Orange, yellow – orange and yellow, an example of an analogous color scheme. This type of scheme is easy on the eye as it uses colors that are beside each other on the color wheel and therefore closely related. It is useful to use when you want to make a harmonious space but does create more movement than a simple monochromatic scheme. Happy, sunny and pleasure seeking comes to mind for this use of orange.

Orange, yellow – orange, blue, blue – violet make up a dual complementary color scheme. This allows you to combine multiple colors knowing that they will work in harmony. Ideal for patterned fabrics, florals, using different finishes in one room for example wallpaper, upholstery fabric and drapes, tiles and flower arrangements. This is a dynamic use of the color orange, creating spontaneity and emotional reaction.

Orange, yellow, blue and violet combine to form a tetrad color scheme.Too many colors to work with you think? Have a closer look. Think about when you see a patterened fabric, it often has five, six or seven colors, and they all work well together. This type of combination allows for a greater range of different colors to be combined, similar advantages as the dual complementary, but just adds more color variation. Ideal to use when you want to have lots of movement and action, the orange takes on an extroverted, assertive meaning.

Go and try out a few of these ideas now and start creating some outstanding interiors, you know you can do it.

More color schemes from the color wheel

Orange color meanings and associations

Color Consultant course