Changing a whole design's colours in Vectornation by Zaweba

Changing one colour is easy. Changing a whole illustration from a warm palette to a cool one, or making a set of icons match a new brand, is a different job. Vectornation by Zaweba has Recolour artwork and Edit > Edit colours for changing colours across a selection, and Colour themes with a colour guide for finding colours that work together.

Recolour artwork and Edit colours

Both act on everything selected at once. Select the artwork, open Recolour artwork, and you work with the colours the selection uses, rather than with each shape. Change one colour and every shape using it changes together. Edit > Edit colours offers ways to adjust colours across a selection in one step, which is much quicker than clicking through dozens of shapes.

Jobs this suits: producing a dark version of an illustration for a dark website, making several colourways of a pattern for a client to choose from, moving old artwork onto a new brand palette, toning down an over-bright drawing, or matching an icon set to one family of colours.

Colour themes and the colour guide

Window > Colour > Colour themes and the colour guide offer harmonies, which are sets of colours chosen by their relationships on the colour wheel. Complementary colours sit opposite each other and give strong contrast. Analogous colours sit side by side and feel calm. Other harmonies balance three or four colours around the wheel. Starting from one colour you like, a harmony gives you companions that are likely to work with it.

Harmonies are a starting point, not a rule. Use them to find options quickly, then adjust by eye. Often the best palettes take a harmony and make one colour much darker or much quieter than the others, so there is a clear main colour and supporting ones.

A practical workflow

Before recolouring, save, so version history keeps the original. Duplicate the artboard with the Page tool (Alt-drag) so you have the old and new colours side by side. Select the artwork on the copy and open Recolour artwork. If you are moving to a set palette, have it ready in the Swatches panel first. If you are exploring, pick a harmony from Colour themes and try it out. Compare the two artboards, adjust, and repeat on a third copy if you want another option.

This approach gives a client real alternatives to choose from in minutes, built from the same artwork, and keeps the original safe in case they prefer it after all.

Points to watch

Check what is selected. Recolouring acts on the selection, so a background shape included by mistake will change too. Look for colours that should not change, such as a logo in strict brand colours or a skin tone, and leave them out of the selection or protect them by working on a copy. Check contrast afterwards, especially for text, because a harmonious palette can still leave words hard to read. And for print, check new colours with soft proofing, since a change on screen may move colours outside what the press can reproduce.

Combined with global swatches, these tools make colour something you can revisit late in a project rather than a decision you have to get right at the start.