Using a pink color palette and the various shades of pink

You probably regard a pink color palette or shade as feminine. After all, shades of pink have been associated with little girls and pink shades have been associated with sugar and spice. Pink is the color of love hearts and candy floss and is often seen to be the more delicate, sweet version of red.

While red is associated with passion, danger, and anger, different shades of pink have been associated with fragility or weakness. In this article, we’ll explore how to use colors of pink in your design work as well as the different shades of pink to draw from.

Using pink as a color palette

The pink color is associated with little girls, sweetness, cuteness, and softness. Pink has been associated with feminine charm, babies, sugary treats, bubble gum, and delicate flowers.

Using the color pink represents care and nurture, community, tenderness, friendship, inner peace, and harmony.

Using a pink color palette in design

Pink has gentle connotations and a nurturing element. The pink color communicates compassion and unconditional love. Compassion means tenderness or taking action to tend to the needs of another. Pink combines the action color red with the light, insight, and understanding of white.

White mixed with red tames the passions of red, combining them with the inclusiveness, insight, and purity of white. The deeper the color pink, the more passionate and alive it becomes. A hot pink color would be more passionate than a rose pink color. The more pastel the color pink, the sweeter it will become.

As a representation of femininity, pink is relationship bound, caring, romantic, intimate and considerate. More gentle than red, it is loving and kind.

Pink gemstones are equally poetic or meaningful and are said to represent contentment, serenity, acceptance and relaxation. Wearing a pink gemstone is meant to soothe frustration and keep anxiety at bay.

When you use a pink color what does it represent in graphic design?

Unconditional love: a soft pink palette represents kindness, nurturing, romance and unconditional love.

Compassion: unconditional love is always compassionate and empathic and will offer nurture no matter what.

Nurturing: compassion is an action word, representing tenderness or nurturing. It is no surprise then that pink is seen as a nurturing color.

Hope: when compassion, love, and understanding are all present a positive future could be the only outcome. Pink is, therefore, representative of hope.

Other meanings behind a pink color scheme

Pink represents health and the saying ‘in the pink’ stands for good health.
To be ‘tickled pink’ is to be extremely happy or satisfied with an event.
To be a ‘pink collar’ worker means to be a woman in the corporate world. The term is sometimes used negatively.
To pink or use pinking shears means to create a cut out in a zigzag fashion.

Shades of Pink

If you are trying to select a pink color by looking at a pink color chart you’ll have found a long list of pink color choices. We’ll look at some of the more popular pink hex codes that you could use in your graphic design projects.

Salmon Color

Hex #FDAB9F
RGB 253 171 159

Watermelon Color

Hex #FE7F9C
RGB 254 127 156

Fandango Color

Hex #DF5286
RGB 223 82 134

Baby Pink Color

Hex #F5C3C2
RGB 245 195 194

Bubble Gum Color

Hex #FE5BAC
RGB 254 91 172

Creamy Pink Color

Hex #FF69B4
RGB 255 105 180

Taffy Pink Color

Hex #F987C5
RGB 249 135 197

Lavender Color

Hex #FBAED2
RGB 251 174 210

Amaranth Color

Hex #F19CBB
RGB 241 156 187

Rose Pink Color

Hex #FF66CC
RGB 255 102 204

Brick Color

Hex #FB607F
RGB 251 96 127

Magenta Color

Hex #FF0090
RGB 255 0 144

Flamingo Color

Hex #FCA3B7
RGB 252 163 183

Carnation Color

Hex #FFA6C9
RGB 255 166 201

Thulian Color

Hex #DE6FA1
RGB 222 111 161

Lemonade Color

Hex #FDB9C8
RGB 253 185 200

Cerise Color

Hex #DE3163
RGB 222 49 99

Ultra Pink Color

Hex #FF6FFF
RGB 255 111 255

Punch Color

Hex #EC5578
RGB 236 85 120

French Rose Color

Hex #F64A8A
RGB 246 74 138

Ruby Color

Hex #E0115F
RGB 224 17 95

Hot Pink Color

Hex #F81894
RGB 248 24 148

Fuchsia Color

Hex #FF00FF
RGB 255 0 255

Pink Color

Hex #FC0FC0
RGB 252 15 192

Hot Pink hex code #F81894

A hot pink color is closer to red than rose. As a result it is warm and passionate and is associated with warmth, love and happiness.

Carnation Pink

Can you believe that this beautiful color was actually created by crayon manufacturer Crayola? That’s right. This soft pink color resembles the beautiful carnation flower and has a delicate appeal.

Piggy Pink

Did you know that pigs have their own unique pink color? It’s true, and this color now forms part of the pink palette available to designers.

Baby pink

Who can think of pink without a baby pink color coming to mind? Baby pink is exceptionally light and is often more white than pink. Baby pink shades can be traced back to 1928. In western culture, baby girls are often dressed in pink clothes or swaddled in pink blankets while baby boys use blue.

Light pink

Light pink is a deeper pink color than baby pink.

Cherry blossom pink

This beautiful pink colour is related to the gorgeous cherry blossom so celebrated in Japanese culture. Cherry blossoms are pale and fragile in colour and are a very valuable part of Japanese culture.

Lavender Pink

Beautiful lavender is a very popular scented plant. It is also considered to be a pink color. Sometimes the color is simply known as lavender. As part of the pink palette, it remains a favorite amongst girls.

Fuchsia Pink

The fuchsia pink color is one of the purple-pink shades. It was named after the popular fuchsia plant and remains a favorite pink color amongst women.

China Pink

We don’t know why this pink color was called ‘China’ but this is one of the different shades of pink which have been added to the Plochere Color System.

Congo Pink

This pink is different from the other pink shades because it is more orange in tone. This pink color is more than a century old, having been introduced in 1912.

Mexican Pink

Which pink shades could be more vibrant than Mexican pink? This pink color is extremely popular in costumes as well as in art. Mexican pink rose to popularity in the 1940s when it was used by Ramon Valdiosera.

Pink Lace

A new addition to the pink color palette, Pink Lace was introduced in 2001. Despite being new, pink lace is incredibly popular with girls. It is also one of the popular pink shades used in women’s lingerie.

Ending thoughts on using a pink color palette in designs

Pink evokes kindness, compassion, romance, and affection. It is also related to intimacy, care, and nurturance. If you want to tone down the impact of red, replacing it with a gentler, more feminine color, pink shade is the way to go. We hope this article assists you in finding the right pink color for your designs.

If you enjoyed reading this article about using a pink color palette, you should check out these about shades of blue, shades of red, green color palettes, orange color palettes, and shades of yellow.

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Bogdan Sandu

Bogdan Sandu, a seasoned designer with 15 years of diverse experience, has been designing websites since 2008.

Renowned for his expertise in logo design and visual branding, Bogdan has developed a multitude of logos for various clients.

His skills extend to creating posters, vector illustrations, business cards, and brochures. Additionally, Bogdan's UI kits were featured on marketplaces like Visual Hierarchy and UI8.