Color Usage
Sources: The Art of Color, Johanne Itten
© 1961
Pantone: Guide to Communicating with Color, Leatrice Eiseman © 2000
Design Principles and Problems, Zelanski & Fisher ©1982
Of all the forms of non-verbal communication, color is the most instantaneous method of conveying messages and meanings. Color stimulates and works synergistically wth all of the senses, symbolizes abstract concepts and thougthts, expresses fantasy or wish fulfillment, recalls another time or place and produces an aesthetic or emotional response.
The effectiveness of color is vital in communicating a positive, enticing and irresistible image to a product.Often called the "silent salesperson," color must immediately attract the consumer's eye, convey the message of what the product is all about, create a brand identity, and most importantly, help make the sale.
BASIC COLOR TERMINOLOGY
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HUE: Refers to Color. Color and hue are synonymous and can be used interchangeably. Red, yellow and blue are the primary colors. Green, orange and violet are the secondary colors and tertiary colors are a mixture of two secondary colors.
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SATURATION: The intensity of a color is described as saturation or chroma. Saturation or Intensity refers to pure hue, no dilution. In its purest form a hue is at maximum chroma; these are colors that are not grayed. They are described as clear, pure, brilliant, bright, rich, bold vivid. The grayer or more neutral a color is, the less its saturation. Less saturated colors are described as soft, muted, subtle, toned-down, misty, dull or dusty.
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VALUE: Refers to the lightness/brightness or darkness. In color blending color move from light value to dark value. Lightened values are tints, darkened values are shades and medium value colors are described as midtones. The perception of a color is affected greatly by its value or saturation, in planning a color combination, value and saturation are as important as the hue. For example, in the red family, a darkened value of burgundy imparts more power than a lighter value of rose pink. A vividly saturated turqouise is more exciting than a pale grayed aqua.
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An important graphic tool for creating color combinations, the color wheel is a circular arrangement of the primary, secondary and tertiary colors. It visually illustrates color temperature – warm vs. cool – as vital psychological components in delivering a specific color's message. Red, orange and yellow are associated with the warmth of fire and sun while blue, green and violet connect in the mind's eye with the coolness of sea, sky, foliage and outer space.
Combinations of warm colors send a more energetic, outgoing, aggressive, active message that demand attention while cool colors are more restrained, reserved and calm – more contemplative than physical. But cool colors show less restraint when they are brightened: as cools become more vibrant, so do their personalities.
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MONOCHROME (Fig. 1): The use of a single neutral color. This includes light to medium grays, beiges, taupes and off-whites. |
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MONOCHROMATICS (Fig. 2): The use of one color family in various values or intensities. These combinations can be very effective in imparting subtle nuances such as the refreshing quality of contrasting green foliage or the deliciousness of rich chocolate brown melting into a creamy mocha color.
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| ANALOGOUS (Fig. 3): Analogous colors lie next to each other on the color wheel, usually 3 colors: blue, blue green, green. They are always harmonious as they share the same undertones. Total harmony can lack impact. Expanding the analogous group somewhat by adding touches of another neighboring color will garner more attention. | |
COMPLEMENTARY(Fig. 4): Complementary colors are total opposites on the color wheel that enhance each other when used as a pair; they complete each other. The red family will appear even redder when contrasted with green, as will orange with blue or yellow with purple. They balance each other as they are opposites, one hue is warm and ther other is cool.. Also called simultaneous contrast, each complement seems to vibrate along the periphery of the area where they meet. |
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COLOR INTERACTION
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When two variations of the same color, one light and one dark, are placed next to each other, the lighter shade will seem lighter and the darker shade will appear to be darker. A lavender shade will appear to be paler against a purple background. |
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SEEING and FEELING COLOR
The color agent is the physcial pigment, the colorant. Color arises in the human eye and brain. How we discriminate these wavelenghts is not fully understood. Scientists believe the perception of color is determined by the wavelengths which bounce back into the retina, a sensory membrane that lines the eyes. The rods and cones of the retina respond to light and, by an electro-chemical process, sends signals to the visual center of the brain.
The eye and mind achieve distinct perception through comparison and contrast. Color perception is the psychophysiological reality as distinguished from the physical reality of color. Color effect is the way we respond to waves of energy produced by the color spectrum.
COLOR HARMONY / COLOR DISCORD
Color harmony is refer to the joint effect of two or more colors. Harmonious colors composed of closely similar chromas (Analogous Colors), or else of different colors in the same shades (Monochromatic Colors). They are combinations of colors that meet without sharp contrast. As a rule, the assertion of harmony or discord simply refers to an agreeable-disagreeable or attactive-unattractive scale.
Harmony implies balance, symmetry of forces. Discordant colors
are those colors that are not pleasing, unbalanced, with no relationship obtained.
The simpler the order, the more obvious or self-evident the harmony.
Color harmony, as a general rule, is that all complementary
pairs or Dyads (diametrically opposed colors, red/green,
blue/orange, yellow/violet); Triads (three hues from the
color wheel so that their positions form and equilateral triangle, yellow/red/blue);
Tetrads (two pairs of complementaries in the color wheel
whose connecting diameters are perpendicular to each other, yellow-violet/red-orange/blue-green);
Trapezoid (two hues may be adjacent, and two opposing ones
found to the left and right of the complements); Hexods (three
pairs of complementary colors are harmonious hexads. There are two hexads
in the 12-hue color circle: yellow/violet/orange/blue/red/green and yellow-orange/blue-violet/red-orange/blue-green/red-violet/yellow-green).
COLOR CONTRASTS
Based on color theory, there are seven different kinds of color contrasts. Each is unique in character and artistic value, in visual, expressive and symbolic effect, and together constitute the fundamental resource of color design.
1) CONTRAST OF HUE: It is made up of undiluted colors in their most intense luminosity.
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All the paintings in the 11th century are done in contrast of hue. This lends to the supra-real expression, befitting the theme of the Apocalypse. |
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2) LIGHT / DARK CONTRAST: The Contrast of day and night, light and dark.
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3) COLD WARM CONTRASTS: The Cold Warm effect can also be described as: shadow/sun; transparent/opaque; sedative/stimulant; rare/dense; airy/earthy; far/near; light/heavy; wet/dry.
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| shows cold-warm modulations in the area of green-blue-green, and red-orange | |
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4) COMPLEMENTARY CONTRASTS seem to intensify each other and vibrate along shared edges.
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| We call two colors complementary if their pigments mixed together, yield a neutral gray-black. Complementary colors are opposites, they incite each other to maximum vividness when adjacent; and they annihilate each other, to gray-black, when mixed-like fire and water. |
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5) SIMULTANEOUS CONTRAST: Results from the fact that for any given color the eye simultaneously requires the complementary color, and generates it spontaneously if it is not already present.
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As an experiment, gaze at a green square and then close your eyes, see if you see an afterimage, a red square. |
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Or look at a red square, the after image is a green square. This experiement may be repeated with any color, and the afterimage always turns out to be of the complementary color. |
It is believed that the eye balances the complementary color; it seeks to restore equilibrium of itself. This phenonmenon is referred to as SUCCESSIVE or SIMULTANEOUS CONTRAST. Successive and simultaneous contrast suggest that the human eye is satisfied, or in balance, only when the complemental relation is established.
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Itten writes that this picture is discordant because the two pairs of colors –red-orange/green and brown-violet/yellow are not exactly complementary pairs. Each generates simultaneous contrast, and therefore the effect of the colors is vibrant and discordant, as the theme of the devil requires. |
| Itten states that "the component colors purple, greenish yellow, gray-yellow and blue-gray irritate each other into a discordant, desperate simultaneous contrast of great sharpness. This simultaneous effect occurs because the colors are not precisely complementary, and interfere." He further states that El Greco used these colors to convey a feeling of oppression. "He has sacrificed 'beauty of color' to veracity of mood." |  |
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According to Itten, Van Gogh relates the loftiness of the evening sky to the smallness of human individuals and to their imprisonment. The simultaneous contrast in the picture is formed by Van Gogh's use of yellow together with the orange of the café,against the blue-violet of the sky. Itten writes that the violet would have been complementary to yellow, and blue to orange. But instead of violet and blue, Van Gogh chose a blue-violet that sets both yellow and the orange in vibration. This effect is intensified by unbalanced area distribution. The glaring yellow and orange would require a much larger expanse of blue-violet for harmonious equilibrium.The yellow-green of the walls and the dark green of the tree generate another simultaneous contrast with the interspersed spots and streaks of red. This asymmetry of composition lends to expressionistic intensity to the coloring of the picture. |
6) CONTRAST OF SATURATION: Refers to the contrast between pure, intense colors and dull, diluted colors. A color may be diluted by white, which renders its character somewhat colder. A color may be diluted by black, removing a color's splendor or brilliance.
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| In the Magic Fish painting, two contrasts are at work, the light-dark contrasts in the blue-white, pink and orange tones and saturation contrast in the red and dark blue shades. The background is blue-black night, out of which pure colors luminesce here and there, like tropical fish darting in the light (Itten, 102) | De la Tour used the same colors almost invariably – red, black and white – and the brilliance and saturation, constructing his composition in light and dark, vivid and dull colors. The use of contrast of saturation transforms fiery red into quiet warmth. Its expression is more meditative than spectacular. |
7) CONTRAST OF EXTENSION: Involves the relative areas of two or more color patches. It is the contrast between much and little, or great and small.
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This shows the primary and secondary color circle of harmonious extension. Harmonic areas yield static, quiet effects. Contrast of extension is neutralized when the harmonious proportions are used. |
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Notice the small amount of red-orange in the sleeve and collar of the plowman is in contrast of extention with the blue-green and brown shadings of the picture as a whole. |