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Color Theory: Overview

worqx.com — If you are involved in the creation or design of visual documents, an understanding of color will help when incorporating it into your own designs. Choices regarding color often seem rather mystical, as many seem to base decisions on nothing other than "it looks right."

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matrixneo 1 year 301 days ago, made popular 1 year 301 days ago

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Killabrew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This is very intresting. Ive never thought about it from this point of view.
badnewsblair, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Extremely thorough.
Asvetic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Much more in-depth than the color theory class I had in college. Makes me wonder what else I might have missed out on.
- zlyoga, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yea I'm taking color theory right now. Reading this taught me more than listening to the crappy teacher I got stuck with has.
- AlanLivingston, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@zyloga
  
  School (High school and college) in my experience has a linear transfer function. You get about as much out of it as you put in.
  
  When I was a senior in high school, my best teacher really didn't teach all that much. He'd assign some reading, write some equations on the board and maybe work out a couple of problems on the board. Then he'd assign tons of uncollected homework.
  
  Most students absolutely hated him. Many parents complained to the schools administration about him. But I got along great with him. I did the amount of homework necessary for me to understand the concepts. Usually did very well on exams and quizzes. But I absolutely loved the subject, chemistry.
  
  When I was a sophomore, I had a teacher with a very similar teaching method. I hated him and complained to many of my friends that he was a horrible teacher. Now that I matured, I've come to understand that the difference wasn't the teacher but instead, the effort I was putting into the class. Mostly because I wasn't all that interested in the subject, math. Trig as I recall.
  
  By the time I'd graduated from college, I'd switched majors from Computer Science to math. I'd switched from chemistry to computer science after my first semester.
  
  Tastes and interests change. But life's too short to drink cheap beer!
tomakun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Here's a really good reference on color theory and quantifying color from Konica/Minolta. My professor used the pdf version as part of our lecture notes in one of my optics classes:

http://www.konicaminoltaeurope.com/pcc/en/
geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I read that and kept saying to myself, "Ahah." "Interesting" "Wow" Now even my dog is interested in the website, she's wondering what's going on.
- lunanul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1maybe dogs are not colorblind contrary to popular belief.
3Den, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Brings to mind...

First, ask yourself what the primary colors are, and what colors make what.

check out the first set of gifs halfway down

http://www.wendycarlos.com/colorvis/color.html#duplicate

the ones wiht the red striped background.
Make sure you view it true sized, not scaled, or it'll destroy the effect.

Look at the image, decide what colors you see, then blow it up in your viewer of choice and see what you are realling looking at.

Afterwards, have a read through the parent site
http://www.wendycarlos.com/colorvis/color.html

I found this surprisingly interesting, and realized things do not work the way I thought they did, at all.
- jaythree9, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1yay wendy carlos - s/he's a Moog virtuoso! wrote the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange. hmmm...orange.
Civil44, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow this really helped A+ I love it
Alisic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Very good, I approve.
AlanLivingston, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1And yet we'll still somehow end up with color theory substantiating the same low saturation websites with low contrast gray text.

Then when the next trendy decoration scheme... Uhh, sorry, design trend, comes along, it too will use color theory to substantiate its claims.

Any reason at all for making color choices based on dividing the color wheel into equal-spaced parts? It seems like a bunch of non-rigorous hand-waving to me.
- Metasquares, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Color, particularly when used in design, is as much an art as a science. As with music, you can choose to interpret the theory of color in whatever way you wish (whether the results are aesthetically pleasing or not) - this is what makes it an art.
  
  And as with music, there are many different forms and interpretations that arise from this freedom, or else we'd still be composing Gregorian chant.
- AlanLivingston, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah... That's kind of my point. It's not science. There's no real theory behind it in the scientific sense. It all boils down to a codification of what looks nice.
  
  Seeing some real investigation into perception to see WHY or IF these colors actual appeal to broader classes of people would be a lot more interesting. But I expect that type of research is beyond the capabilities of most color theorists.
Doomhammer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Very interesting article. I've been designing an application similar to this:

http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html

Just for the fun of it, and this will be a big help in understanding some of the concepts involved in writing a decent app.
gpan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Mac OS X users might find this useful:

http://www.oldjewelsoftware.com/products/ppicker/index.html
gpan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Doh! Duplicate post.
gerryk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good article... particularly useful tool on the last page
Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4HOW did all those painters paint those great pictures without "color theory"??

"Looks right" experience isn't 'mystical'; it's the DIY that "color theory" emerged from. Just like good furniture design, good watch design, good bridge design.
- grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Agreed. We knew that ginger was good for relieving travel sickness a long time before we understood any scientific reasoning for it.
  
  The painters simply responded to their perception of what they believed look good.
  
  As a software developer, I was looking for this sort of explanation a year back. We provided the user the ability to select a background colour for particular cells in a grid. Of course, users would do stupid things like choose navy blue background for the black text and then complain they could not use it. What we had to look for was an algorithm that converted any RGB to a complimentary colour, so we could display yellow text in the navy cell. So there are very good uses to colour theory. You don't have to understand it to know what looks good and what doesn't, but it is nice to have a predictor that you can use to say with a base of colour X, what other colours can be used.
rovertly, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3i know all about color theory, you jackasses. i don't need to read this stupid article!
blinkgreen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Even though this was very informative, I still think that the best way to fully understand color theory is to mix your own paint colors, have a basic color wheel near by, experiment and always have fun. You don't always have to create a masterpiece everytime. I know this is really cliche, but, practice makes perfect (or gives you probably much needed experience) because it isn't just color you have to worry about, if you're painting, it's also the type of paint and different colors have different strengths and opaqueness (if that's a word) to them.
spliffy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1after all of those create a web 2.0 logo tutorials, i wasn't expecting much.

this is very well written, easy to understand and through. this is a great bookmark, and reference.

highly recommended for all designers.
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Color Theory: Overview

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