Assign colors to your artwork

The Assign tab of the Live Color dialog box lets you assign colors from a color group to your artwork. You can assign colors in several ways, including using a new color group chosen from the Harmony Rule menu. In this next section of the lesson, we will practice assigning new colors to the color bar and "Aquo Life" text at the bottom of the poster.

1. Choose View > Fit in Window.
2. Choose Select > Deselect and with the Selection tool, click and drag to select the blue bar and "Aquo Life" text at the bottom of the poster.
3. Choose Edit > Edit Colors > Recolor Artwork to open the Live Color dialog box.
4. From the Harmony Rule menu, choose the Complimentary harmony rule. This will pick a set of colors that is complimentary to the green color. Leave the Live Color dialog box open.
   
   Notice in the Live Color dialog box that the green color has a new green color assigned and the blue color has a new purple color assigned. The white color has no new color assigned because the complimentary color group that was chosen only had two colors.
   
   Artwork selected.
   
   
   
   From the Harmony Rules menu choose Complimentary.
   
   
   
   The result.
   
   
   
5. With the Live Color dialog box still open, click and drag the purple color on top of the green color in the New column. This will swap the green and purple colors. Leave the Live colordialog box open.
   
   Drag to swap the new colors.
   
   
   
   The result.
   
   
   
6. From the Colors menu, choose 1.
   
   Notice that in the Colors menu, some of the numbers are dimmed. You can select up to the number of colors originally found in the object. In this case it is three (green, blue, and white).
   
7. At the bottom of the Live Color dialog box, make sure that the HSB sliders are showing. If they are not, select HSB from the Color Mode menu by clicking on the Color Mode button to the right of the sliders.
8. Change the HSB values to H=360, S=87, and B=84. This will edit the purple color to a red.
   
   Notice how the new purple color has changed to red. Also notice how the blue and green colors are merged in the Current Colors column. The red color in the New column is split into 3 different sections (The 3 sections are subtle because one section is a tint of the red). This indicates the new red color (the top half) and the tints of the new red beneath it. The darkest color in the row (the blue) is replaced with the specified new color (the red). Other current colors in the row (the green) are replaced with a proportionally lighter tint of the red because you chose to use 1 color.
   
   

   Change the number of colors to 1.
   
   
   
   Change the HSB values to red.
   
   
   
   The result.
   
   

9. Click on the Show Color Group Storage icon on the right side of the Live Color dialog box to show the Color Groups list if it isn't already showing. Click New Color Group to create a color group from the colors you edited. The color group called Color Group will appear in the Color Groups list.
10. Double-click on the new color group name in the Color Groups list to open the Edit Name dialog box. Change the name of the group to LogoBar and click OK.
11. Click OK in the Live Color dialog box and click Yes if a save dialog appears. The new color group should appear in the Swatches panel.