Learning Center - Graphic Design for Everyone 05.pdf

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Learning Center
Learning Center
Lesson 5: Color My World
It's no secret that color has a huge effect on human beings. I always feel down on the gray, December
days, and I have an incredible lift of spirits upon seeing the first green leaves of spring against a blue sky.
This lesson focuses on Color Theory, the science of color relationships, and how they can help or hamper a
design.
What's Color Theory?
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In the Lesson 4, you learned about typography and the impact it
has on design. This lesson focuses on color and how you can use it
to make your designs great.
Color Deficiency:
Color Theory is a vast subject first studied by Greek philosophers,
the most well known being Aristotle and Plato. Modern artists still
discuss and write about color theory, including 20th century
theorists and members of the Bauhaus school, Josef Albers and
Check your Web color
Information from a medical
I will touch on the basics of color theory, but like most other topics
covered in this course, it's a complex subject that you can explore
in more detail at your convenience. I'm not going to get into the
science of color and its effect on the human brain because I'm not a
scientist and this is a design class. However, it's an extremely
interesting topic, so I encourage you to seek out more information.
A Note on Color Blindness
A better term is color deficiency, because very few people are
truly color blind. The most common difficulty is the inability to
distinguish between reds and greens. One author on the Web
describes the difficulty in observing pink flowers on a shrub:
Because this person couldn't differentiate between pink and green,
the flowers were undetectable.
As designers in a world that loves to use color, we must keep in
mind that people can't always see the colors we choose. Therefore,
we must think not only in terms of color, but also tint or value
(discussed later in this lesson).
I had a professor who challenged us to give the visual definition of
a word using only type, the word itself, and no color. My word was
anger, so I set about using quotation books and dictionaries to read
different interpretations of the word. I kept thinking that anger was
like seeing red, but I couldn't use red in my design. I finally found a
quote that said anger is danger without the d. (I apologize for not
knowing the source of the quote.) In the end, I had a great concept
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based on the quote and I didn't have to use color to describe it.
The Wheel Keeps on Turnin'
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Now we're going to get into the nitty-gritty of color. One inexpensive and indispensable resource is
a color wheel. I really like the color wheel because it has the basic color information and also shows
what a color will look like when mixed with another one.
The color wheel is the best place to start when looking at color relationships, and it's a good visual
tool to use when learning color definitions.
Figure 5-1: The basics of the Color wheel.
Figure 5-1 shows the three basic categories of color:
Primary
Red, yellow, and blue are primary colors. They could be called pure, because no other color is
mixed to create them.
Secondary
When you mix two of the primary colors together, you get secondary colors.
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Red + Yellow = Orange
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Blue + Yellow = Green
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Red + Blue = Violet (Purple)
Tertiary
When you mix a secondary color with a primary color, you get tertiary colors.
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Yellow + Green = Yellow Green
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Green + Blue = Green Blue
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Red + Orange = Red Orange
Opposites Attract
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Each primary color has a secondary complement -- it's easy to remember which is which, but the
color wheel also comes in handy here. Two complementary colors lie opposite one another on the
color wheel, as shown in Figure 5-2.
Figure 5-2: Complementary colors.
Did you know that one color longs to be with its complement? This phenomenon is called
simultaneous contrast. A good explanation I got from a professor is that a color and its
complement are like two people who always think about one another -- when they get together,
there's a ton of energy.
In real terms, simultaneous contrast is one color leaving its complement on another or leaving a
visual imprint of its complement. For example, my brother brought home an optical trick from school
in the form of a simple, flat color drawing of the American flag. I was told to stare at the image for a
little while and then look at a blank sheet of white paper. I saw the same flag, but this time in
shades of black, green, and orange instead of the familiar red, white, and blue.
Print Figure 5-3 on a color printer and stare at the black dot in the center for at least 30 seconds.
What do you see?
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Figure 5-3: Simultaneous contrast experiment.
As I was typing this lesson, I noticed that when I wasn't looking directly at the flag, I could see green
streaks coming off the red stripes. Pretty cool, huh?
Complementary color is often used to get people's attention (think red and green for Christmas and
pastel violet and yellow for Easter). But another thing to keep in mind is that although colors can be
attention-getting, they can also be very tiring to the eye. This is the energy my professor was
referring to. When these colors are put next to one another, they jump and vibrate. Take a look at
Figure 5-4 to see what I mean.
Figure 5-4: Vibrating complementary colors.
Imagine setting green text on a red background. After a while, it would be extremely difficult to read
because your eyes have a hard time finding the borders of the text. Notice how the boundary
between the red and green diamonds looks darker? This isn't a Photoshop trick; it's simultaneous
contrast in action. Red appears on its complement, green, which makes the edge darker.
It's Hot in Here!
Page 4 of 7
There has always been a lot of discussion on the emotions that colors evoke. In Pantone Guide to
Communicating with Color, Bright Red is described as "exiting, energizing, sexy, and provocative,"
and Lime is described as "tart, acidic, and refreshing."
These are good guidelines, but remember that every person will associate color differently. Certain
shades of pink give me the warm fuzzies, but a lot of people are completely turned off by it. This is
why it is essential to know your audience and their tastes.
I'm not here to debate color emotions (although you're welcome to on the Message Board). I will,
however, talk about color combinations. Have you ever heard the terms warm and cool colors?
Have you been told that you are an autumn or summer? What colors do these words bring to your
mind?
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Warm colors are reds, yellows, and oranges. These are the colors we tend to see first;
they're great to use when trying to gain someone's attention.
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Cool colors are the blues, greens, and violets. These colors are known to recede, and are
often used to create a sense of dimension. Think about the song lyric, "purple mountains
majesty." Are mountains actually purple? No, but objects that have that grayish-purple
quality tell your eyes that they are far away.
The cosmetics industry has made a fortune by telling women their seasons. This really has to do
with what colors look good on you. Think about the colors of fall: They are deep oranges and reds,
browns, and deep greens. They make me think of football games and high school marching bands.
Whereas the colors of spring are bright greens and yellows, pinks, and sky blues (not necessarily
pastel but vibrant). These colors remind me of days spent lying in the grass picking out shapes in
the clouds. Figure 5-5 shows representation of seasonal color.
Figure 5-5: Seasonal color combinations: spring, summer, fall, and winter.
I Love Hugh
Page 5 of 7
Did you see him in Sense and Sensibility? He's in love with Eleanor but she is too poor for his
fami . . . Wait, what was that? Hue, not Hugh? Oh, well; it looks like my babbling about Hugh Grant
will have to wait. I'm supposed to be discussing H-U-E, as in the color of something.
Did you know hue is another way to say color? I didn't until I started taking design classes in school.
Below is a list of color jargon for you to familiarize yourself with. (You do that while I dig up my copy
of Four Weddings and a Funeral.)
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Hue, as I've said, is simply another word for color. If you shift the hue of something (which
can be done in Photoshop), you're basically changing the color of that object.
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Saturation indicates the amount of that color. The lower the saturation, the grayer the color
gets.
Value is the lightness or darkness of a color. For example, gray is a lighter value of black,
and pink is a lighter value of red.
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Brightness is the equivalent of value.
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