Understanding Colour

Posted by Sting Communications on May 2, 2016 in Design

1. Things you should know about colour basics

Color is probably the most enjoyable thing that happens to humans. Animals only see a muted and limited range of colors, it is often very close to grayscale. It is us humans who can enjoy a colorful life. Now the question is though we see colors everywhere, are we aware of the effects of different colors. Are we able to signify different color themes that interest or disgust us? As designers, we need to educate ourselves about the practical theories surrounding the mixing of hues and building tuneful schemes. For those of us who are painters are much better positioned to understand colors. They have spent their time with water colors, acrylic and oil paints hands on and have developed a natural color sense that the rest of us will have to activate within ourselves. Actually a lifetime of observation, enjoyment and hands on practice is the best way to know and deal with colors. But here are a few guidelines that will be useful to know and use colors.

The color wheel: A color wheel has three primary colors: Blue, Red and Yellow. These three colors are the basic cogs of the color wheel and all other colors are created through the blends of these colors. Secondary colors are a halfway mixture between each of three primary colors Orange, Green and Violet. Orange is a mixture of Red and Yellow, Green is a mixture of Blue and Yellow and Violet is a mixture of Blue and Red. Then comes the tertiary color. These are created when primary colors are mixed with the adjacent secondary colors. Complementary colors are those that are direct opposite to each other in the color wheel.

Here, I would like to put an emphasis that we are discussing hues or colors that are digital or printable. The colors of light are a different field of discussion. That is necessary in case of photography and we shall discuss it separately. So, do not worry about VIBGYOR. Instead, concentrate on hue, saturation and value. Hue: it is the indistinct shades as well as pure easily named colors. Saturation: is determined by how pure the hue is. When a hue is mixed with black or grey or a neutral tone, it becomes muted or less saturated. Value: How dark or light the hue appears in relation to black or white is the value of a particular color. If the value is wrong, the color can’t be right. Value is crucial when working with color. Squint your eyes to judge colors that are placed side by side. A yellow will be much lighter than blue or violet if you look at them in this way.

Understanding CMYK and RGB

Instead of Vibgyor, we designers deal with cmyk and rgb. They might sound odd to outsiders, but we build our world around it.

CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK are the physical liquid colors. This is the color code for physical printing technology and a mixture of these in different quantities bring out the other different colors that we see in our printing from books to signage and so on.

RGB: is the digital format of colors. Red, Green and Blue are the basic colors that are understood by the computer monitor. All colors that are viewed in the monitor are solids tints or mixtures of Red, Green and Blue. Unlike CMYK when 100 of each value of RGB is combined the result is white. CMYK combination in high percentages results in black.

(So it is black or white for us designers. No wonder, all Black and white creations look great to the eye. Do not take this seriously. But actually I want you to take black or white seriously when you are designing.) Confused? Things will be easier when you will be regularly following me. I have the idea of clarifying things in due course. But before we get to that nitty-gritty of designing, we shall discuss the application of colors for your design to look great. That is mixing your design palette in the right proportion of colors.

2. The best way to understand Colors for your design job

Colors are vital when design a project. You must understand properly where this design will be used. Is it for digital purposes only or the design will also be used for printing. The same design will have a different treatment if it is used for digital purposes only.

In these days, where design presentations are often done on the digital platform, more often through email where the designers are not physically present to explain their prospective of a particular color tone or scheme, It has become extremely important to understand the difference between digital and print media. Things that we see digitally are normally brighter on the LED / LCD  screens but actually might look a lot more dull in print. A design that is approved digitally must also be approved with the print if it is going to be used in the printed form. After all, printing presses print with ink and not light. So much so, the designs that will be used digitally, must also be checked in a variety of platforms before finalization. Every monitor displays colour differently. There is no absolute way to control how your work will appear on another person’s computer screen. But brace yourself, unless you are unlucky enough to meet such colour fussy clients, you can create designs that maintain a balance.

Searching for a color scheme for your designs:

Creating harmonious and effective combinations of color is a matter of instinct that is perfected by practice. Here are some practiced methods of building eye friendly palette.

First select a simple graphic design where you can apply different colours in tandem. Do not use flowers as the design as you cannot judge colour variation in them as the hue of flowers are too deeply embedded in your mind. Though a rose can be black, but thinking of roses, the colour red immediately comes to your mind. You can select a graphic of an animal or a cartoon character maybe to notice how the graphic changes mood with the change in color palette.

Begin with monochrome by selecting a single base hue and a number of lighter or darker tints. You can slowly build up an understanding if after using monochrome in a particular design, you shift to Triads. That is any three hues that are equally spaced in the colour wheel. For example, you can use shades of blue, yellow and magenta. You are free to experiment with the amount of each color featured in the design. Now see how an Analogous palette is created. It is three adjacent hues used together. The intensity of each color can be adjusted. Try out this one. Heavily mute all the colors in the design  then bring out one sparingly used hue and see how it immediately attracts attention.

Now try a complimentary color scheme. They are two colors situated in opposite direction of the color wheel.Hue of red and green maybe. Changing the saturation or hue of one of the complementary hues might be necessary to avoid a vibrating effect.

Here’s the tricky one. Split complements are the palettes where warm and cool hues are combined. Keep one thing in mind, if the base color work well with a scheme, its monochromatic cousins and be safely used to create variations. But best avoid using all complimentary colors with similar values (values: they are the strength each color can be used) then it will create a vibrating effect.

Whatever you do with your designs and no matter how good you want them to be, never underestimate the power of a simple palette. I have never seen a more strong color palette than a black and red or for that matter black and white.

3. Color borrowing, a simple but effective way for a great design

When designing with an image or photograph, one of the most useful ways of designing can be picking up colors directly from the image to use that hue in the design. Get your digital image in Photoshop or any image altering software and pick generous numbers of colours from that image. Create a palette from these colors and then come up with different color themes for the same design using that palette. You will see how a wonderful color echo has evolved. Now you can judge the best work and use it after fine-tuning other aspects of the design. When you are looking for harmony between your image and palette you can use the color echo as a strategic design method.

4. Understanding CMYK the printing color code

CMYK or cyan, magenta yellow and black are the four inks that is used for printing machines. All designs that are created digitally but for printing purposes must use the CMYK color mode and not RGB as in case of web and other digital publication. The the highest value of each of cyan, magenta, yellow or black is 100 and you mix each in different amount to get the desired colors. The color can be printed in solid to 0 and vice versa. Each of the four colors are printed from a separate ink tray at the printing press and combined directly on paper. The process of offset printing involves use of plates, where single colors are available. It is a complex process but modern machines make it look pretty simple. Make it a point to visit an offset press to understand this first hand. They may not let you in the machine room, but a little persuasion or a reference from a special person will make it easy. Coming back to printing with CMYK color code, keep a process color guide handy to understand the colors that will be actually be printed from your design.

CMYK or the process colors, can be printed in tints ranging from 0 to solid. Tints are achieved by varying the density of tiny dots used in the printing process. The process inks are nearly transparent, so when combined, they can result in new hues. Both tints and solids are combined between one or more process colors to achieve an extensively broad range of hues.

image courtesy: http://www.creativeboom.com/

Tags: advertising, colour, design, visualization