With the Artboard complete let's create our color palette that we'll be working off of throughout the piece. With the Rectangle Tool (M) draw three squares side by side leaving about the same amount of space between them and fill them with the following colors. Because our typography piece is summer themed I thought I'd choose muted tones indicative of the ocean. So one will be a sort of sea foam blue/green color, another will be reminiscent of the color of sand, and the last will be a coral (or starfish) color