Use of Smart Colors for template makers (Enterprise)

Template colors

With the Smart Colors feature, you can create more adaptable and reusable templates in a simple way and save users from having to spend a lot of time customizing colors.

The template’s color options allow you to create a color palette that is fully aligned with your corporate style and which can also be customized by the user (this takes the place of the former color samples).

When you make a change to template colors, it will apply to the entire project – not just to the item that you are working on as is the case with project colors. In other words, when you change a Smart Color, that change will be made in all the content that you have already created and in the slide templates when a new slide is going to be added.

It should be mentioned that any colors that change will not only affect the elements of the template itself but also any elements created by the user.

There are three types of theme colors:

• Dynamic colors: these are colors that the user of the template (the content creator) is going to be able to configure and modify at any time. They are modified throughout all the project’s content.
• Derived colors: these colors are not going to be able to be modified directly by the template user. They have a relative relationship with the dynamic color – based on that dynamic color, the hue, lightness, and saturation are modified to obtain a related color that can have other uses. If the dynamic color is changed, this color will change based on the saturation, lightness, and hue values that were assigned to it.
• Static colors: colors that do not change, regardless of the modifications made to the dynamic colors. These colors can be assigned to certain aspects that are typically associated with a specific color; for example, green for positive feedback and red for negative feedback.

In addition, in templates, color palettes can be configured: this is basically a pre-selection of dynamic colors that go well together.  The template creator can set several suggested color palettes so that things are even easier when a project is created. The idea is for the end user to not have to think about what colors go well together. If you do not want template users to be able to use different palette, you can create just one.

We recommend that you add a name and description to all template colors so that their suggested use can be identified. For example, note what color is being used for backgrounds or as the title color. Keep in mind that the users of your template can create new elements on their slides and it is useful for them to know how to correctly use colors.

You are going to find the template colors in all parts of the project: for all the elements for which color can be configured, for text boxes, and even for the project tab.

The settings button allows you to set the dynamic, derived, and static colors:

We recommend you make the simplest possible use of template colors; that is to say, use the fewest number of dynamic colors possible so that palette creation becomes simpler. The best thing to do in this case is to tend to not repeat concepts and reuse dynamic colors as much as possible.

If you don’t want content creators to be able to customize template colors, we recommend that you only use static colors. This is especially useful when content must be made under a specific corporate identity which cannot be modified.

Considerations about template colors

Derived template colors follow the HSL model (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) instead of the RGB (Red, Green, Blue) model.

The hue is shown relatively with values from 0 to 10. This is because if we want to create a derived color from a dynamic one, it doesn’t make sense to change the hue drastically.

Saturation and lightness do indeed show absolute values from 0 to 100, but it is important to take into account that, although they can be fully modified, they continue to have a relative relationship with the dynamic color.

We must also consider that, if the dynamic color is modified, the relationship between the dynamic color and the derived color is maintained. This means that there could be a moment when a certain “maximum” is reached. For example, like in the previous image, if the dynamic color is quite saturated and the derived color has been set with a high value, there may come a time when more saturation cannot be added and it is not possible to keep the initial ratio.