Designing with Colors: The Fundamentals of Color Theory

Insights

Color Theory! Let's have a look at what this course offers.

• About Color
• Color Wheel
• Color Parameters
• Combining Colors
• Color Systems
• Color Perception and Psychology

Introduction

Color helps to understand a piece of art, design, signage, fashion or anything visual. It can communicate meanings without text and affect user behaviors

It is essential to understand color theory and how to combine colors

• The Color of Light and Paint
• The Color of Light

All colors are mixtures of Red, Blue, and Green lights. Developed by Issac Newton.

The Color of Paint

All colors are mixtures of Red, Blue, and Yellow pigments. Developed by Moses Harris.

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary colors

Primary Colors

In a color system, the primary colors are those which cannot be produced by mixing other colors.

In this , we will follow the RYB color system that is most commonly used by designers and artists. The primary colors are

• Red
• Yellow
• Blue

Secondary Colors

The secondary colors appear by combining two primary colors.

• Red + Blue gives Purple
• Blue + Yellow gives Green
• Red + Yellow gives Orange

Tertiary Colors

Tertiary colors are also known as intermediate colors that are created by combining equal portions of a primary color with a secondary color next to it on the color wheel.

• Red + Orange = Vermilion
• Orange + Yellow = Amber
• Green + Blue = Teal
• Blue + Purple = Violet
• Yellow + Green = Yellow-Green
• Purple + Red = Magenta

The Color Wheel

A color wheel is an arrangement of primary, secondary and tertiary colors in order. It helps you to create meaningful color schemes for your designs.

The most common color wheel used by designers and artists is the RYB color wheel model that consists of 12 colors.

Additive and Subtractive Colors

Colors can be blended by subtractive or additive processes.

Additive Process: The color is created adding light to a black background.

Subtractive Process: The color is created blocking white light using pigments of dyes.

That’s why most monitors use RGB, and printers use CMYK.

Warm, Cool, and Neutral Colors

Colors are classified into three based on their temperatures.

Warm Colors: The half of color wheel that consist of red, orange, yellow that give an impression of energy are called warm colors.

Cool Colors: The other half of color wheel which gives an impression of calm and soothing are called cool colors.

Neutral Colors: Colors like black, white and gray are neutral colors.

Hue

The attribute that differentiates colors as red, yellow, blue, is called Hue. It defines pure colors in terms of red, green or blue.

Saturation

The attribute that defines the intensity of the color is called saturation. The color will be bright if the saturation is high.

Value

Value measures the variation among grays and refers to the darkness or lightness of a color. A hue can vary in value to form different colors. A red can change in value and become light pink or dark brown.

Chroma

Chroma defines purity of a color. It is the quality that embraces hue and saturation together. A pure color has high chroma and a muted color has low chroma.

Tint

If you add white to an original real color, you get a tint and thereby it is lighter than the original color.

Shade

If you add black to an original color, you get a shade and thereby it is darker than the original color.

Tones

Tones are created by adding gray to a pure hue. The addition of gray slightly darkens the original color.

The color solid

The color solid represents the perceptual dimensions of color that show the relationship between hue, saturation, and value.

Color Gradient and Contrast

Color Gradients

Color gradient or color progression denotes a range of position-dependent colors used to fill an area. The colors generated by a gradient vary rapidly with position thereby producing smooth transitions.

Types of Color Gradients

Linear: Colors are arranged in a straight line.

Radial: Colors are arranged in a circular pattern.

Angular: Colors that sweep around the starting point in a counterclockwise direction.

Reflected: The same linear gradient gets mirrored on either side of the starting point.

Diamond: Colors from middle to outer corners like that of a diamond pattern.

Color Contrast

Color contrast is the variance between two colors. In a color wheel, the colors directly opposite to each other has the maximum contrast.