Colour design and personalising your layout and indicators

Hi everyone,

This post is not about trading, it's about colour design and why you should consider it for your trading layout (so ignore all the indicators, they're just to show you how things can be coloured). Just to clarify, as I'm Scottish, I'm using "colour" but it is "color" on TV code etc.

TradingView gives almost unprecedented access to us, its users, as we can write code and colour our indicators (and more) to our heart's desire. So why not take advantage of that freedom and colour your trading setup in a visually appealing way?

I've seen a lot of indicators and many that have one or two colours working well, but then they need a fourth colour start going with a completely different palette that just makes it all a bit sore on the eyes. But hey! Aren't we here to earn money, why should I care how my indicator/setup looks? This is a perfectly reasonable attitude and yeah, this is you, this post probably isn't going to useful producing aesthetically pleasing indicators is not high on everyone's list - just as people don't always notice bad chord progression in music, colours don't impact everyone the same way.

Some basic rules I try and follow:

• the colours should complement one another
  
• they complement the colour of the background
  
• I should be able to clearly see all the indicators/oscillators and what not, without getting confused by the colours, OR
  
• I should immediately be able to tell if the indicators/oscillators are suggesting buy, sell or neutral
  
• the less colours you can (sensibly) use, the better (but make sure you can understand the indicator)
  
• shades of a colour often work better than a completely different colour
  
• brighter doesn't always mean better
  
  The preprogrammed (and industry standard) versions of colours available(e.g. plain Red, Blue, Green, etc.) are not my favourites, but luckily now there are now many good sites that allow you create your own colour palette - just search "create colour palette". Once I have a site, I start by picking three colours to represent:
  
• the Bulls (buying signals, positive, rising, increasing, etc.)
  
• the Bears (selling signals, negative, falling, decreasing, etc.)
  
• Neutral (zero lines, figures or lines that lie in between user determined Buy and Sell levels, etc.)
  
  Start with the Bulls colour, lock it in, and then the generator should find complementary colours for the Bears (lock it in) and then Neutral. For me, these are usualy close cousins of the archetypal green, red and yellow, but it's important to choose a colour you like - you're going to be seeing a lot of it. Then I will use the colour generator to find different shades of the main colours, as well as other complimentary colours, so that I have enough to form a colour wheel, or at least a scale of colour. I will then create a script with these colours in it, so that they are handy for copy-pasting, and I won't lose them.
  
  The website should give you the HEX code for your colours as well as the RGB code. If you are not coding, and just want to change the colours of your indicators through the "Style " tab, click on the colour you want to change, then on the + symbol, then add the colour in by copy and pasting their HEX code, and finish by clicking Add. Although a bit time consuming, if I am going ahead with a new palette I will add them all in one go.
  
  When it comes to coding a script, I assign the colours to bullCol, bearCol, neutCol etc., and direct any colour calling to these variables. This allows you to easily change one colour and have it impact all the places you've used it throughout the script, much easier than rather than having to find and replace "(#16FF72, 0)" ten times in a script.
  
  The Candlesticks/Bars
  I've read somewhere that having Red as a negative candlestick is actually detrimental to the mindset of the trader on a subconscious level (after all, we associate red with danger and alerts), so I try and have my candles as different colours altogether. But it is important that they are in the same family of colours as my indicators, so I have usually started with the important indicator colours and then gone back and edited the candlesticks to complementing colours. If you have created a colour wheel (or have around eight colours to use, not including shades) you may find two of these work best for your candle colours.
  
  Finally, I would say, experiment! I have had three main colour palettes, and some have worked better than others! (you can see the worst of mine on my Jurik MACD script) The key is finding those three colours that you really like, to represent the Bulls, Bears and neutral, and then using the generators and some commons sense, it all comes together.
  
  And that's it, really. It makes such a difference for me, seeing my layout on desktop, browser, phone in my colours and my design. Yes, it is all dressing and won't necessarily help you make the right decisions or more money, but it worth considering.
  
  Good luck! If anyone wants any help with colours, just send me a message.