Element of Design - Colour
There are 3 qualities of colour.
-
Hue or Chroma is the specific name of a colour such as red, green, blue, etc.
-
Value is the lightness or darkness of a colour. By adding white to a red colour, you tend to lighten the red colour and you will obtain pink which is considered a tint of red. If you add black to a red colour, you tend to darken the red colour and you will obtain maroon which is considered a shade of red.
-
Intensity refers to how bright or dull a colour appears.
Categories of Colour
Colour Wheels are a tool used to organize colour. It is made up of:
Primary Colours -Red, Yellow, Blue these colours cannot be mixed, they must be bought in some form.
Secondary Colour -Orange, Violet, Green, these colours are created by mixing two primaries.
Tertiary Colours - Red Orange, Yellow Green, Blue Violet, etc.; mixing a primary with a secondary creates these colours.
Colour Harmonies
Colour harmony is when an artist or graphic designer uses certain combinations of colours that create different looks or feelings.
-
Complementary colours are colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel. When placed next to each other they look bright and when mixed together they neutralize each other.
-
Analogous colours are colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel for example red, red orange, and orange are analogous colours.
-
Triadic harmony is where three equally spaced colours on the colour wheel are used for example, yellow, Red, Blue is a triadic harmony colour scheme.
-
Monochromatic is where one colour is used but in different values and intensity.
-
Warm colours are on one side of the colour wheel and they give the felling of warmth for example red, orange and yellow are the colour of fire and feel warm.
-
Cool colours are on the other side of the colour wheel and they give the feeling of coolness for example blue, violet, are the colour of water, and green are the colour of cool grass.
[Guided Search]
You can learn more about colour by using your internet search engine and entering the search term “element of design colour” or “element of design color”. A very useful website can be found at http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theory-intro.htm.
[Investigation]
On the website http://colorschemedesigner.com/, you can investigate various colour schemes and how web designers can find colours that go well together on a web page.