Color Theory

Designing with color

The Color Wheel

The Primary Colors

• The Primary Colors are…

• Red• Yellow• Blue• These three colors

can be mixed to create any other color.

The Secondary Colors

• The secondary colors come from mixing equal amounts of primary colors, they are…

• Green (blue+yellow)• Orange (red+yellow)• Purple (blue+red)

Intermediary and Tertiary colors

• Intermediary colors are made by mixing a primary and a secondary color together.

• Tertiary colors are the result of mixing two secondary Colors. For example, mixing orange and purple.

Complementary Colors

• Complementary colors are opposite from each other on the color wheel and they contrast because they do not have any colors in common. Green is made by mixing yellow and blue, so it will complement red.

The Starry NightVincent Van gogh

• This artwork uses a balance of complementary colors to create a harmonious design

Analogous colors

• Analogous colors on the color wheel are right next to each other and have a color in common. Like blue, blue/green, and green all contain blue. Red, orange and yellow are analogous because red and yellow make orange.

Lighthouse at Two LightsEdward Hopper

• This artwork uses Analogous colors

Cool colors

• Cool colors are made mostly of green, blue and purple and they remind you of cool things and make you feel cooler.

The Old Guitarist Pablo Picasso

• This artwork uses Cool colors to create a mood of depression and express the coldness of society

Warm colors

• Warm colors are made mostly of red, orange and yellow and they remind you of warm things and make you feel warm.

Red CannaGeorgia O'Keeffe

• This artwork uses Warm colors to illustrate the vibrancy of life

Value• Value is the lightness

and darkness of color• Adding white to a

color will lighten it’s value

• Adding black to a color will darken it’s value

Saturation• The Brightness or

dullness of a color• How vivid a color

appears

FUN FACTS ABOUT COLOR

• Color can change meaning

Color can be Manipulative

Context

RGB Color

• A common color mode, RGB stands for the colors of Red, Green, Blue. Add red, green, and blue light to create white light. Because you ADD the colors together to get White, we call these RGB colors the additive primaries. Colors on screen are displayed by mixing varying amounts of red, green, and blue light.

CMYK Color

• To reproduce full-color photographic images, typical printing presses use 4 colors of ink. The four inks are placed on the paper in layers of dots that combine to create the illusion of many more colors. CMYK refers to the 4 ink colors used by the printing press. C is cyan (blue), M is magenta (red), Y is yellow, and K is black. Because mixing colors produces dark rather than light, these are subtractive colors.

Hexidecimal Color

• Hexidecimal codes are representations of red, green and blue. The code is six digits and is used for colors displayed on the web.

Pantone Matching SystemThe Pantone Color Matching System is largely a standardized color reproduction system. By standardizing the colors, different manufacturers in different locations can all refer to the Pantone system to make sure colors match without direct contact with one another.