Basic Color Theory for Designers

[bholus10]

The first box of crayons you ever got probably had the basic eight: black, white, red, yellow, blue, purple, brown and orange. And at that time, this was all you needed—every shade in the world fit into one of these categories. And then you discovered pink and you had to get the new box with sixteen colors. Your palette expanded. Gray, peach, silver…before long, you asked for the big one. The mother of all crayons. The 64 count set with the sharpener on the box. Surely now you had them all; every color was in your grasp.

Color is an important form of nonverbal communication. From the clothes we wear to the food we eat, color influences our choices. Our perception of the world is affected by color.

Likewise, the way the world perceives us is also affected by color. In fact, color, many times, is the most significant feature of an item. Designers, therefore, cannot afford to treat color lightly.

When mixing and matching, it helps to know a little color theory. Back to kindergarten and that box of eight crayons. One exercise you likely completed was a color wheel.

The wheel is made by placing the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue, if you are working with ink) equidistant from each other on a circle.

By blending the primaries you get the secondary colors: red and yellow produce orange; yellow and blue produce green; blue and red produce purple. Further blends of adjacent colors produce tertiary colors, and so on.

You don’t need a Ph.D. in color theory to know that relationships exist between adjacent, complementary, clashing colors. Our perception of color is affected by the surrounding colors as well as the proximity of other colors, and the amount of light.

Furthermore, certain colors and combinations evoke emotional responses, which, depending on your background, you probably already intuitively know.

It is the designer’s business to create a visual experience which is pleasing to the eye. The elements of visual harmony are simple to explain, yet much more difficult to practice. Harmony engages the viewer and creates an inner sense of order, a balance. Combinations fail to harmonize if they are so bland as to bore the viewer.

At the other extreme, chaotic, overdone combinations will be rejected as something which the mind cannot organize or understand. Simply put, the designer must strive to achieve the balance between under-stimulation and over-stimulation. This is harmony, a dynamic equilibrium.

Adjacent or analogous colors are those next to each other on the color wheel. These are harmonizing hues, since they each contain of a little of each other in themselves. They work well together, although they can appear washed out if they are too

close to each other on the wheel. Adding black or white to one or both colors (creating tints or shades) can create higher contrast, solving this problem.

Complementary colors are separated by one color on a twelve part color wheel. While this combination of colors creates higher contrast, it also causes undesirable visual vibrations which puts physical strain on the eyes. This effect can be alleviated if complementary colors are separated on the page by at least one other color.

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Kleurplaat123 is an online coloring website that provides a variety of options for every child. You can also find drawings of insects, dinosaurs, cars, trucks, horses and many more.

It's no secret to anyone that there is nothing more relaxing then coloring in circles or lines using a designed template. And ita been scientifically proven that coloring pages have the ability to soothe a cranky toddler and settle them down for napping time.
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