Using the Pantone 2021 Color of the Year in E-Learning Design #308

Using the Pantone Color of the Year #308: Challenge | Recap

How to Use the Pantone Color of the Year 2021

To help you get started using Ultimate Gray + Illuminating, Pantone  created five different color palettes and recommended color harmonies:

You’re welcome to use any one of these color palettes for your template.  Don’t feel as if you have to use every color in the palette. Pick three or four colors from a palette and use those as the basis for your designs.

And if you really want to simplify your color palette, stick with tints and shades of Ultimate Gray and Illuminating.

Working with Tints and Shades

One of the easiest and safest ways to create a color palette is to start with a base color and use tint and shade values for the secondary colors.

Tints are created by mixing white values with your base color while shades are made by mixing values of black.

Using a Single Color for Your E-Learning Courses

The tints and shades approach works so well, you could build an entire course using a base color and 2-3 tints and shades.

Tints and shades can be used to establish your type hierarchy and accent colors for graphic elements. Here’s a super quick mockup I put together using one of the illustrated templates from Content Library:

Challenge of the Week

This week your challenge is to design an e-learning template or interaction using Ultimate Gray and/or Illuminating  as the primary color. 

Your slides can be static or built out as working interactions. Your goal is to work from a single color and show how you will carry that color across your design templates.

NOTE: Your entry can be anything from a rough concept to a polished example. The challenges are open to everyone, regardless of experience or skill level. If you need technical or creative help with your project, please ask in our forums and reference the challenge number you’re working on.

Resources

Did you share an example in one of the previous color challenges? If you did, that’s great! Thank you.

Feel free to use that example as a starting point for this week’s color challenge. There’s nothing wrong with reusing the same example with different color palettes.

To get an idea of what course designers shared in previous color challenges, check out the following challenges:

• 2014: Create a Radiant Template with Pantone’s Color of the Year #15
• 2015: What Can You Do with Pantone’s Color of the Year? #63
• 2016: How Can You Use Pantone's Color of the Year 2016 in E-Learning? #111
• 2017: Add a Little Greenery to Your Next Course with Pantone’s Color of the Year #154
• 2018: Create an E-Learning Template Using Pantone’s 2018 Color of the Year #186
• 2019: Using the 2019 Pantone Color of the Year in E-Learning #214

• 2020: Using Pantone's Classic Blue in E-Learning #263

Last Week’s Challenge:

Before you dive into this week’s color challenge, take a look at the most common e-learning interactions and examples your fellow community members shared over the past week:

Common E-Learning Interactions #307: Challenge | Recap

New to the E-Learning Challenges?

The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.