Color. All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites. Marc Chagall. Color can convey a mood, describe

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1 Colo All colos ae the fiends of thei neighbos and the loves of thei opposites. Mac Chagall Opposites Attact Stong colo contasts add visual enegy to this dense physical montage made fom flowes. Blue and puple stand out against pink, oange, and ed. Nancy Foehlich and Zvezdana Rogic. Colo can convey a mood, descibe Ou peception of colo depends eality, o codify infomation. not solely on the pigmentation of Wods like gloomy, dab, and physical sufaces, but also on the glitteing each bing to mind a bightness and chaacte of ambient geneal climate of colos, a palette light. We also peceive a given of elationships. Designes use colo in elation to the othe colos colo to make some things stand out aound it. Fo example, a light tone (waning signs) and to make othe looks lighte against a dak gound things disappea (camouflage). Colo than against a pale one. seves to diffeentiate and connect, Likewise, colo changes meaning to highlight and to hide. fom cultue to cultue. Colos Gaphic design was once seen cay diffeent connotations as a fundamentally black-and-white in diffeent societies. White signals entepise. This is no longe the viginity and puity in the West, case. Colo has become integal to but it is the colo of death in Easten the design pocess. Colo pinting, cultues. Red, won by bides in once a luxuy, has become outine. Japan, is consideed acy and eotic An infinite ange of hues and in Euope and the United States. intensities bing moden media to Colos go in an out of fashion, and an life, enegizing the page, the sceen, entie industy has emeged to guide and the built envionment with and pedict its couse. sensuality and significance. Gaphics To say, howeve, that colo is and colo have conveged. a shifting phenomenon both Accoding to the classical physically and cultually is not tadition, the essence of design to say that it can t be descibed o lies in linea stuctues and tonal undestood. A pecise vocabulay elationships (dawing and shading), has been established ove time not in fleeting optical effects (hue, that makes it possible fo designes, intensity, luminosity). Design used softwae systems, pintes, and to be undestood as an abstact manufactues to communicate to amatue that undelies appeaances. one anothe with some degee Colo, in contast, was seen as of claity. This chapte outlines the subjective and unstable. basic tems of colo theoy and And, indeed, it is. Colo exists, shows ways to build puposeful liteally, in the eye of the beholde. elationships among colos. We cannot peceive colo until light bounces off an object o is emitted fom a souce and entes the eye.

2 73 Colo Complementay and Analogous Colos This diagam shows combinations of pimay, seconday, and tetiay colos. Robet Lewis, MFA Studio. Basic Colo Theoy In 1665 Si Isaac Newton discoveed that a pism sepaates light into the spectum of colos: ed, oange, yellow, geen, blue, indigo, and violet. He oganized the colos aound a wheel vey much like the one atists use today to descibe the elationships among colos. 1 Why is the colo wheel a useful design tool? Colos that sit nea each othe on the spectum o close togethe on the colo wheel ae analogous. Using them togethe povides minimal colo contast and an innate hamony, because each colo has some element in common with othes in the sequence. Analogous colos also have a elated colo tempeatue. Two colos sitting opposite each othe on the wheel ae complements. Each colo contains no element of the othe, and they have opposing tempeatues (wam vesus cool). Deciding to use analogous o contasting colos affects the visual enegy and mood of any composition. 1. On basic colo theoy and pactice, see Tom Fase and Adam Banks, Designe s Colo Manual (San Fancisco: Chonicle Books, 2004). The Colo Wheel This basic map shows elationships among colos. Childen lean to mix colos accoding to this model, and atists use it fo woking with pigments (oil paint, watecolo, gouache, and so on). Seconday Colos Oange, puple, and geen each consist of two pimaies mixed togethe. Complements Red/geen, blue/oange, and yellow/puple sit opposite each othe on the colo wheel. Fo moe subtle combinations, choose nea opposites, such as ed plus a tetiay geen, o a tetiay blue and a tetiay oange. nea opposites opposites Pimay Colos Red, yellow, and blue ae pue; they can t be mixed fom othe colos. All of the othe colos on the wheel ae ceated by mixing pimay colos. Tetiay Colos Colos such as ed oange and yellow geen ae mixed fom one pimay and one seconday colo. Analogous Colos Colo schemes built fom hues that sit nea to each othe on the colo wheel (analogous colos) have minimal chomatic diffeences.

3 74 Gaphic Design: The New Basics Hue is the place of the colo within the spectum. A ed hue can look bown at a low satuation, o pink at a pale value. Intensity is the bightness o dullness of a colo. A colo is made dulle by adding black o white, as well as by neutalizing it towad gay (loweing its satuation). 75 Colo Value is the light o dak chaacte of the colo, also called its luminance, bightness, lightness, o tone. Value is independent of the hue o intensity of the colo. When you convet a colo image to black and white, you eliminate its hue but peseve its tonal elationships. Aspects of Colo Evey colo can be descibed in elation to a ange of attibutes. Undestanding these chaacteistics can help you make colo choices and build colo combinations. Using colos with contasting values tends to bing foms into shap focus, while combining colos that ae close in value softens the distinction between elements. Shade is a vaiation of a hue poduced by the addition of black. Tint is a vaiation of a hue poduced by the addition of white. Satuation (also called choma) is the elative puity of the colo as it neutalizes to gay. These colos ae close in value and intensity, and just slightly diffeent in hue. These colos ae close in hue and value but diffeent in intensity. Gaduated Colo Wheel Each hue on the colo wheel is shown hee in a pogessive seies of values (shades and tints). Note that the point of geatest satuation is not the same fo each hue. Yellow is of geatest intensity towad the lighte end of the value scale, while blue is moe intense in the dake zone. Use the gaduated colo wheel to look fo combinations of colos that ae simila in value o satuation, o use it to build contasting elationships. Robet Lewis, MFA Studio.

4 77 Colo 76 Gaphic Design: The New Basics + CYMK is used in the pinting pocess. While Colo Models paintes use the basic colo wheel as a guide Sufaces absob cetain light waves fo mixing paint, pinting ink uses a diffeent and eflect back othes onto the set of colos: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, which ae ideal fo epoducing the colo eceptos (cones) in ou eyes. ange of colos found in colo photogaphs. The light eflected back is the light C, M, Y, and K ae known as the pocess we see. The tue pimaies of visible colos, and full-colo pinting is called fou-colo pocess. Ink-jet and colo lase light ae ed, geen, and blue. The pintes use CMYK, as does the commecial light system is called additive offset pinting equipment used to pint books because the thee pimaies togethe such as this one. ceate all the hues in the spectum. In pinciple, C, M, and Y should poduce black, but the esulting mix is not In theoy, combining ed and ich enough to epoduce colo images with geen paint should poduce yellow. a full tonal ange. Thus black is needed to In pactice, howeve, these pigments complete the fou-colo pocess. combine into a blackish bown. This is because pigments absob moe light than they eflect, making any mix of pigments dake than its souce colos. As moe colos ae mixed, less light is eflected. Thus pigment-based colo systems ae called subtactive. Offset and desktop pinting methods use CMYK, a subtactive system. Nonstandad colos ae used because the light eflected off Tanspaent Ink Pinte s inks ae tanspaent, so colo mixing occus as colos show cyan and magenta pigments mixes though each othe. Colo mixing is also moe puely into new hues than the pefomed optically when the image is light eflected off of blue and ed boken down into tiny dots of vaying size. The esulting colos ae mixed by the eye. pigments. + + = RGB is the additive system used fo designing on sceen. Diffeent pecentages of ed, geen, and blue light combine to geneate the colos of the spectum. White occus when all thee colos ae at full stength. Black occus when zeo light (and thus zeo colo) is emitted. Any given colo can be descibed with both CMYK and RGB values, as well as with othe colo models. Each model (called a colo space ) uses numbes to convey colo infomation unifomly aound the globe and acoss media. Diffeent monitos, pinting conditions, and pape stocks all affect the appeaance of the final colo, as does the light in the envionment whee the colo is viewed. Colos look diffeent unde fluoescent, incandescent, and natual light. Colos aely tanslate pefectly fom one space to anothe. Tanspaent Light The medium of light is also tanspaent. The colos of an emitted image ae geneated when diffeent colos of light mix diectly, as well as when tiny adjacent pixels combine optically. Optical Colo Mixing This detail fom a pinted pape billboad shows the pinciple of fou-colo pocess pinting (CMYK). Viewed fom a distance, the flecks of colo mix togethe optically. Seen up close, the patten of dots is stongly evident. Whateve colo model you softwae is using, if you ae viewing it on sceen, it is RGB. If you ae viewing it in pint, it is CMYK.

5 81 Colo 80 Gaphic Design: The New Basics Joanna Mashall Katie Evans Ellen Kling Anna Eshelman Julie Diewald Neutal eath tones combine to make a quiet oveall patten, while a palette with stong contasts of value and hue yields a moe linea effect. By changing the colos of backgound and foegound elements, completely new foms appea and disappea. Colos close in value but diffeent in hue ceate a vibant yet soft effect. The effect becomes even softe when analogous colos ae used. The similaly muted hues of olive and bown sit back, allowing a pale yellow patten to come fowad. Next, gadations of yellow, oange, and ed weave though a geen backgound of equivalent value, causing the dak blue shapes to command attention. In the fist colo study above, the complementay oange and blue squaes vibate against each othe, while the analogous yellow and geen play a moe passive ole. In the second study, the dak blue and bugundy tones fame and push fowad the bighte blues in the cente. Elizabeth Tipson Selective Emphasis These studies use typogaphic patten to exploe how colo altes not just the mood of a patten, but the way its shapes and figues ae peceived. Colo affects both the pats and the whole. Each study begins with a black and white patten built fom a single font and lettefom. Expeiments with hue, value, and satuation, as well as with analogous, complementay, and nea complementay colo juxtapositions, affect the way the pattens feel and behave. Though selective emphasis, some elements pull fowad and othes ecede. Typogaphy I. Jennife Cole Phillips, faculty. Anna Eshelman Anna Eshelman The muted neutal hues allow the foms to gently commingle, while contasting hues and values beak the elements apat.

6 82 Gaphic Design: The New Basics Pinwheel in bo Pinwheel in pink Pinwheel in pink Pinwheel in bown Pinwheel in l Pinwheel in ceam Passion, Palettes, and Poducts What began as a love fo Potuguese tile pattens on a tip to Lisbon evolved into an intensive investigation into patten, fom, and colo, manifesting itself in an MFA thesis poject and now an online business. Textile designes often ceate numeous colo ways fo a single patten, allowing the same pinting plates o weaving templates to geneate divese pattens. Diffeent colo palettes make diffeent elements of the patten come fowad o ecede. Jessica Pila, MFA Studio. Pinwheel in ceam Pinwheel in lime