Magic of Colors - Color Theory

 



Color theory is that the collection of rules and guidelines which designers use to speak with users through appealing color schemes in visual interfaces.

To pick the simplest colors whenever, designers use a color circle and ask extensive collected knowledge about human optical ability, psychology, culture and more.

Color theory is both the science and art of using color. It explains how humans perceive color; and therefore the visual effects of how colors mix, match or contrast with one another.

Color theory also involves the messages colors communicate; and therefore the methods wont to replicate color. In color theory, colors are organized on a color circle and grouped into 3 categories: primary colors, secondary colors and tertiary colors.

Color wheel basics

The color wheel consists of three primary colors (red, yellow, blue), three secondary colors (colors created when primary colors are mixed: green, orange, purple) and 6 tertiary colors (colors made up of primary and secondary colors, like blue-green or red-violet).

Draw a line through the middle of the wheel, and you’ll separate the nice and cozy colors (reds, oranges, yellows) from cool colors (blues, greens, purples) and therefore the remaining colors will come under neutrals.

Warm colors are generally related to energy, brightness, and action, whereas cool colors are often identified with calm, peace, and serenity.

When you recognize that color features a temperature, you'll understand how choosing all warm or all cool colors during a logo or on your website can impact your message.


Warm colors





Warm colors include red, orange, and yellow, and variations of these three colors. These are the colors of fireside, of fall leaves, and of sunsets and sunrises, and are generally energizing, passionate, and positive.

Red and yellow are both primary colors, with orange falling within the middle (making it a secondary color), which suggests warm colors are all truly warm and aren’t created by combining a warm color with a cool color.

Use warm colors in your designs to reflect passion, happiness, enthusiasm, and energy.

    1. Red (primary)

Red is the color of extremes. It’s the color of passionate love, seduction, violence, danger, anger, and adventure.

Our prehistoric ancestors saw red because the color of fireside and blood – energy and primal life forces – and most of red’s symbolism today arises from its powerful associations in the past.

Red is also a magical and religious color. It symbolized super-human heroism to the Greeks and is that the color of the Christian crucifixion. Red was almost as rare and as expensive as purple in ancient days – an incontrovertible fact that may explain its magic and power.

Red is that the color of excellent luck in Asia and is that the hottest color China. Most Japanese children draw the sun as an enormous red circle. In East Asian stock markets, red is used to denote a rise in stock prices.

Red is an auspicious color for marriage. Brides in India and Nepal wear red saris; in Japan, a red kimono symbolizes happiness and good luck. In design, red are often a strong accent color.

It can have an overwhelming effect if it’s used too much in designs, especially in its purest form. It’s an excellent color to use when power or passion want to be portrayed within the design.

Red are often very versatile, though, with brighter versions being more energetic and darker shades being more powerful and stylish.

   2. Yellow (primary)

Yellow is that the most luminous of all the colors of the spectrum. It’s the color that captures our attention quite the other color. It’s the color of happiness, and optimism, of enlightenment and creativity, sunshine and spring.

Lurking within the background is that the dark side of yellow: cowardice, betrayal, egoism, and madness. Furthermore, yellow is the color of caution and physical illness (jaundice, malaria, and pestilence).

In almost every culture yellow represents sunshine, happiness, and heat. Yellow is that the color most frequently related to the deity in many religions (Hinduism and Ancient Egypt).

Yellow is that the color of traffic lights and signs indicating caution everywhere the planet. In Japan, yellow often represents courage. In China, adult movies are referred to as yellow movies.

In Russia, a colloquial expression for a mental hospital won’t to be "yellow house. Bright marigold yellow may be associated with death in some areas of Mexico.

In your designs, bright yellow can lend a way of happiness and cheerfulness. Softer yellows are commonly used as a gender-neutral color for babies (rather than blue or pink) and young children.

Light yellows also provide a more calm feeling of happiness than bright yellows. Dark yellows and gold-hued yellows can sometimes look antique and be utilized in designs where a way of permanence is desired.

    3. Orange (secondary)

Orange may be a combination of yellow and red and is taken into account an active color. Orange calls to mind feelings of pleasure, enthusiasm, and heat. Orange is usually wont to draw attention, like in traffic signs and advertising.

Orange is energetic, which is probably why many sports teams use orange in their uniforms, mascots, and branding.

Orange is additionally the color of bright sunsets and fruits like oranges and tangerines, numerous people might associate the color with the sweetness of a setting sun or the refreshing taste of citrus.

Because orange is related to the fruit of an equivalent name, it is often related to health and vitality. In designs, orange commands attention without being as overpowering as red. It’s often considered more friendly and alluring, and fewer in-yours-faces.

Cool colors





Cool colors include green, blue, and purple, and variations of these three colors. Blue is that the only primary color within the cool spectrum. Greens combat a number of the attributes of yellow and purple takes on a number of the attributes of red.

They are often more subdued than warm colors. Cool colors appear farther from the observer.

    1. Green (secondary)

Green may be a cool color that symbolizes nature and therefore the wildlife. Perhaps due to its strong associations with nature, green is usually thought to represent tranquility, good luck, health, and jealousy.

Researchers have also found that green can improve reading ability. Some students may find that laying a transparent sheet of report over reading increases reading speed and comprehension.

Green is usually utilized in decorating for its calming effect. For example, guests waiting to see on television programs often wait during a “green room” to relax. Green is assumed to alleviate stress and help heal.

Green, the color of life, renewal, nature, and energy, is related to meanings of growth, harmony, freshness, safety, fertility, and environment. Green is additionally traditionally related to money, finances, banking, ambition, greed, jealousy and Wall Street.

    2. Blue (primary)

Blue is embraced because the color of heaven and authority, denim jeans and company logos. It is cold, wet, and slow as compared to red’s warmth, fire, and intensity.

Blue has more complex and contradictory meanings than the other color. These can be easily explained by pinpointing by the specific shade of blue.

Dark blue: trust, dignity, intelligence, authority

Bright blue: cleanliness, strength, dependability, coolness (The origin of those meanings arise from the qualities of the ocean and inland waters, most of which are more tangible)

Light (sky) blue: peace, serenity, ethereal, spiritual, infinity (The origin of those meanings is that the intangible aspects of the sky.)

Most blues convey a way of trust, loyalty, cleanliness, and understanding. On the opposite hand, blue evolved as symbol of depression in American culture.

    3. Purple (secondary)

Purple is that the most powerful visible wavelength of electromagnetic energy. Variations of purple convey different meanings: Light purples are light-hearten, floral, and romantic. The dark shades are more intellectual and dignified.

One of the foremost significant aspects of purple’s symbolism is that the generational divide. Among Mediterranean people, purple was reserved for emperors and popes. The Japanese christened it “Imperial Purple”

Purples are utilized in the care of mental of nervous disorders because they need shown to assist balance the mind and transform obsessions and fears.

Purple is that the color of popular children's television characters – "Barney" and "Tinky Winky" (the purple Teletubby from the BBC). In design, dark purples can provide a sense wealth and luxury. Light purples are softer and are related to spring and romance.

Neutrals




Neutral colors are most clearly defined as hues that appear to be without color, which don’t typically appear on the color wheel. Neutrals can enhance the variation in a piece, creating subtle visual interest that both diminishes the vibrancy of the piece as a whole and highlights the focal points.

Neutrals have many other visual effects: when combined with shades, tones, and tints, they allow for shading, as darker or lighter neutrals help to create a realistic lighting effect.

    1. Black

The color black affects the mind and body by helping to make a not noticeable feeling, boosting confidence in appearance, increasing the sense of potential and possibility, or producing feelings of emptiness, gloom, or sadness.

Black is often considered the strongest of neutrals. It is associated with dominance, darkness, sophistication, authority, seriousness, affluence, quality, mystery, drama, fear, death, evil, and grief. All blacks generally have a negative connotation.

Black is that the traditional color of mourning in many Western countries. It’s also related to rebellion in some cultures, and is related to Halloween and therefore the occult.

Black, when used as more than an accent or for text, is commonly used in edgier designs, as well as in very elegant designs. It can be conservative or modern, traditional or unconventional, depending on the colors it’s combined with.

    2. White

White represents purity or innocence. While a bride wearing white was often thought to convey the bride's virginity, blue was once a traditional color worn by brides to symbolize purity.

White is bright and may create a way of space or add highlights. Designers often use the color white to form rooms appear bigger and more spacious. In advertising, white is related to coolness and cleanliness because it is the color of snow.

You can use white to suggest simplicity in high-tech products. White is an appropriate color for charitable organizations; angels are usually imagined wearing white clothes.

White is related to hospitals, doctors, and sterility, so you'll use white to suggest safety when promoting medical products. White is usually related to low weight, low-fat food, and dairy products.

3.     3. Gray

The color gray could also be a timeless and practical color that's often associated with loss or depression. Dark, charcoal communicates variety of the strength and mystery of black.

It is sophisticated colors that lack the negativity of the color black. Light grays can carry variety of the attributes of the color white. The grey color affects the mind and body by causing unsettling feelings. Light grays are feminine in nature, while dark grays are masculine in nature.

Grey is often used for font color, headers, graphics, and even products to appeal to a mass audience. On the web site, they use the color grey for his or her header to contrast against a white logo.

4.       4. Brown

Brown could also be a natural color that evokes how of strength and reliability. It's often seen as solid, very similar to the world, and it is a color often related to resilience, dependability, security, and safety.

Brown brings to mind feelings of warmth, comfort, and security. It's often described as natural, down-to-earth, and traditional, but brown also can be sophisticated.

The color brown relates to quality in everything - a cushy home, the only food and drink and constant companionship. It’s a color of physical comfort, simplicity and quality.

The color brown gives reassurance. It’s quietly confident but never the lifetime of the party! Brown doesn't seek attention - it prefers to stay within the background, allowing other colors around it to shine.

5.       5. Beige and Tan

Beige is dependable, conservative, and versatile. The color beige is neutral, calm, and relaxing. The color beige offers variety of the warmth of the color brown and thus the variety of the crisp and coolness of the color white.

Beige in design is typically utilized in backgrounds, and is typically seen in backgrounds with a paper texture. It’ll combat the characteristics of colors around it, meaning its little effect in itself on the last word impression a design gives when used with other colors.

6.       6. Cream and Ivory

Ivory a neutral, relaxing, and calming color, features a number of the same pureness and softness of the color white, but with a warmer tone. Ivory represents quiet and pleasantness. The color ivory sets relaxed tone of understated elegance.

Cream gets its name from the foodstuff naturally produced by grazing cows. To form the straw hue, white is mixed with a tad of yellow. In art, cream is usually used as a base for skin tones. A quiet and pleasant hue, cream is neutral, calm and relaxing.


Written by: Umme Amara Shaikh 

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