6 color
“Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet.”
PAUL KLEE (SWISS, 1879–1940) Author, Educator, Painter
col·or \'kə-lər\ n
1 a: a phenomenon of light (as red, brown, pink, or gray) or visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects
Color is one of the most powerful and communicative elements in a graphic designer’s language. It affects all of us by providing visual energy and variety in what we see and experience on a daily basis. Color is used to attract attention, group disparate elements, reinforce meaning, and enhance visual compositions. It can also immediately convey an attitude or an emotion, provoke a response, create emphasis and variety, communicate a specific message, and further strengthen an established hierarchy.
Color increases visual interest and can reinforce the meaning and organization of elements in any visual composition. As a primary visual element, color enhances the emotional and psychological nuances of any visual message. It assists in creating the mood you desire. For example, light colors produce pleasant responses whereas darker colors produce quieter effects.
Colors also inherently contain subjective meanings that communicate immediately without words or images. For example, red is associated with fire, blood, and sex; blue is associated with ice, sea, and sky.
Numerous classification systems have been developed to identify and categorize color for a variety of visual applications. These include color systems and theories developed by Sir Isaac Newton (1701), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1810), Albert Munsell (1915), Johannes Itten (1961), and Josef Albers (1975).
Vibrant, tertiary color combinations create a strong visual dynamic in these covers for Mohawk Papers’ Via notebooks. Repeating horizontal patterns set in a variety of typographic treatments for “Via” reinforce the diversity and broad applications of the paper line, as we create a campaign that is fresh, bold, and energetic.
ADAMSMORIOKA INC.
Beverly Hills, CA, USA
A full-color gradient, from yellow to blue, is used on this book cover, Coney Island of the Mind, communicating the playful and festival-like spirit of the title and theme of the book. An intense color palette, as well as an eclectic set of typographic letter-forms, further expresses the central celebratory mood and emotional content of the book’s poetry.
RODRIGO CORRAL DESIGN
New York, NY, USA
1984
1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics
SUSSMAN/PREJZA & COMPANY
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Deborah Sussman and the 1984 Summer Olympics
Since 1980, DEBORAH SUSSMAN (1931–2014) and her firm, Sussman/Prejza & Company, have advanced the field of environmental graphic design, creating urban sign programs for numerous cities in California as well as environmental graphics for Disney, Hasbro, and Apple Computer.
In the 1960s, Sussman worked with two pioneers of twentieth-century American design, Charles (1907–1978) and Ray Eames (1912–1988), whose creative imprint revolutionized the look of postwar America. It was during this mentoring period that she became rooted in an Eamesian joy of color, pattern, cultural influences, and ethnic design.
Her environmental graphics program for the 1984 Summer Olympics literally changed the way we experience color in an urban environment. This comprehensive program guided an enormous international audience through a series of complex venues, while visually celebrating the games and the surrounding city on a grand scale and in a festival-like manner. Sussman’s system of temporary structures, scaffolding, striped columns, large-scale graphics, and bright colors were inventive, functional, and extremely accessible.
The Olympic colors were unexpected, exciting, and distinct from the everyday visual fabric of an urban city. Magenta was the base color on which the color palette was built. Sports pictograms were white on magenta; freeway signs were magenta with aqua; the interaction of magenta against yellow, vermilion, and aqua was the most important interrelationship of the palette. The colors also had strong ties to locale—magenta and yellow are of the Pacific Rim, Mexico, and the Far East. Aqua is Mediterranean and a strong counterpoint to the warmer Pacific colors. Colors were generally used in combinations of three or more, and the palette was divided to produce enormous visual variety. Each venue had its own palette that related to the character of its specific sport and to the ambient color and lighting of its surroundings. For example, gymnastics was represented by vermilion, yellow, and green; swimming by aqua and white. The colors worked very effectively in southern California light, appearing brilliant and vibrant at different times of the day.
Color made the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics a truly visual event. It transformed one of the largest cities in the world into an intimate, cohesive experience, as well as the manner in which visual communications would be approached for all future Olympics.
In considering color in her work, Sussman said, “My work with color is informed by content. It has roots in contextual sources and is inspired by geography, cultural history, user’s needs, architecture, urban characteristics, and available materials. I work intuitively when selecting the actual palettes, often relating them to musical iconography. Ray Eames and Alexander (Sandro) Girard (American, 1907–1993) were my mentors. Wassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866–1944) said, ‘In general, color is a medium that has a direct impact on the soul.’ This has been my experience and remains my belief.”
This shopping bag series for Cass Art Stores in London celebrates color in art through typographic compositions that feature traditional oil colors and communicates their provenance throughout art history. Scarlet lake, phthalo turquoise, and viridian are just a few colors that are used on these eye-catching moving billboards.
PENTAGRAM
London, UK
Fundamental Properties
There are three fundamental visual properties of color:
Hue
Color in its purest form, or hue, is the identification given to each color such as yellow, red, or blue. This identification is the result of how we “see” light being reflected from an object at a specific frequency. Of these three fundamental properties, hue is the most absolute—we may “see” a color as yellow, red, or blue, but it is identifiable only when it is adjacent to another color with which it can be compared. A color with no visible hue, such as gray, is a neutral color.
Value
A color's lightness or darkness is identified as its value. This property is also referred to as a color’s luminance, brightness, or tone. It is fully dependent on a color’s hue and intensity. Adding white to a color creates a lighter value, or tint; adding black creates a darker value, or shade of a color.
Value can be used to exaggerate the meaning of any visual message. When elements have changing color value, a viewer’s eye is guided in, around, and through a visual composition. The degrees of contrast and relative amounts of value also provide movement to the composition. Because distant objects appear lighter in nature, value can also create the illusion of space and depth.
Saturation (also chroma)
Intensity or saturation is the brightness or dullness of a color, or its level of saturation. It is the measure of a color’s purity, brightness, or grayness. A saturated color is vibrant and intense, as opposed to a desaturated color that is restrained and somber. Saturation is the amount of gray in a color. As it increases, the amount of gray decreases. Brightness is the amount of white in a color. As it increases, the amount of white increases. A color with little or no saturation contains a large amount of white.
Color is used as a primary organizational and wayfinding tool in this information-based poster titled One Week of the Guardian. Based on the periodic table of elements, information is organized by category of interest and popularity. Relying upon a color key at the bottom of the poster, the viewer can interact with content in an easy and accessible manner by immediately identifying a specific topic with a limited number of colors—in this case, ten different color variables for categories such as News, Business, Culture, and Media.
DESIGNING THE NEWS
London, UK
Saturated colors attract the viewer’s attention. Use desaturated colors when function and efficiency are the priority. Desaturated, light colors are seen as friendly; desaturated, dark colors are seen as formal; saturated colors are seen as exciting and dynamic. Exercise caution when combining saturated colors, as they can visually interfere with one another and increase eye fatigue.
This book cover for See for Yourself: A Visual Guide to Everyday Beauty relies solely upon bright, vibrant color and four-color photographic images to reinforce the visual immediacy of the book's title, as well as its theme.
VOLUME INC.
San Francisco, CA, USA
A sophisticated palette of vibrant and muted colors in a range of values and saturations is the primary element in the rebranding of Sprint’s new retail stores. These diverse colors, combined with product- and user-based imagery, create a visual system that is clean and contemporary for the brand, as well as appealing to a younger audience.
MIRIELLO GRAFICO
San Diego, CA, USA
The rethinking of the iconographic New York City subway map (Massimo Vignelli, 1972) in fluorescent color palettes of RGB and CMYK strips away the familiar color coding of the original version while still maintaining a level of hierarchy and functionality. The visual effect is intense and uncomfortable in some lighting conditions, while washed out and unreadable in other environments. Color is the primary element used in the extreme simplification of this visually complex information diagram.
TRIBORO
New York, NY, USA
Organizational Categories
Primary Colors
Yellow, red, and blue are primary colors. They are pure in composition and cannot be created from other colors. All other colors are created by combining primary colors.
Secondary Colors
Colors identified as secondary are created
by combining two primary colors. Yellow and red create orange; red and blue create purple; and yellow and blue create green.
Tertiary Colors
Colors identified as tertiary are created by combining one primary color with one secondary color—red-orange, red-purple, purple-blue, blue-green, and yellow-green.
Complementary Colors
Colors, such as red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and purple, are complementary and are opposite one another on a color wheel. When mixed together, they desaturate or neutralize each other. However, when they are placed next to each other they increase in intensity.
Monochromatic Colors
Colors created with varying values of a single color are identified as monochromatic.
This is achieved by adding white or black to a color. Monochromatic color schemes are perceived as homogenous and unified.
Analogous Colors
Colors that are created from adjacent colors on a color wheel and have minimal chromatic differences are identified as analogous colors. Analogous color schemes are also perceived as unified, but are more varied than monochromatic color schemes.
Triadic Colors
Colors created from colors equidistant from one another or located at the corners of an equilateral triangle juxtaposed on a color wheel are identified as triadic colors. Triadic color schemes are perceived as strong, dynamic, and vibrant.
Quadratic Colors
Colors created from colors located in the four corners of a square or rectangle juxtaposed on a color wheel are identified as quadratic colors.
This standards manual is part of a student’s senior thesis project for the rebranding and repositioning of Microsoft Corporation. In the overall program, as well as throughout the manual itself, color is used as a symbolic, functional communication device. For example, a palette of three secondary colors—orange, green, and purple—is used for the containment border of the MS logotype, reinforcing the diversity of the company’s products and services. A subdued, muted color palette is used to organize, emphasize, and allow information to be clear and accessible without competing with the primary tricolors of the new logotype and symbol.
JOHN CLARK, Student
RICHARD POULIN, Instructor
SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS
New York, NY, USA
Comparative Relationships
All color relationships are relative. Colors can be identified as darker or lighter only when they are compared to other colors. Yellow is perceived as light; violet as dark. Yellow, for example, appears darker than white and has the lightest value of any color. A deep blue or violet appears bright against black and has the darkest value of any color (black being the absence of any reflected light).
Each color also has different levels of saturation. For example, red, blue, and yellow have different levels of intensity from bright to dull. Blue is not as bright as red or yellow; therefore, its intensity is not as high a level of brightness as found in the other two colors.
When complementary colors are juxtaposed with one another, each color appears brighter than the other. When analogous colors are juxtaposed, they tend to blend visually and therefore may be more difficult to distinguish from one another.
Color schemes, or color harmonies, have been developed to assist designers in choosing colors that work well together. The color wheel, a visual representation of the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, forms the basis for color schemes.
In this poster, overlapping lines of intense colors are layered on a solid, black background, creating brighter hues, as well as an optical third dimension to the overall composition.
RYOTA IIZUKA, Student
SIMON JOHNSTON, Instructor
ART CENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN
Pasadena, CA, USA
Color Wheels
Color theorists have developed many different methods and systems for organizing and describing fundamental and comparative color relationships. In the late seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton (British, 1643–1727) discovered that a prism separates light into a spectrum of seven colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He also noticed that the colors at one end of the visible spectrum appear very similar to the colors at the other end of the spectrum. He then drew these two ends of the visible spectrum together, creating the first color wheel. This rudimentary model is very similar to color wheels used today to codify and organize all color relationships.
The structure of color is represented in a color wheel, which is organized in twelve units: three primary colors, three secondary colors, and six tertiary colors. A color wheel is a visual reference tool that illustrates comparative relationships between colors. Color wheels are two-dimensional diagrams of fundamental color relationships and only reference hues—the identification of colors, such as yellow, red, and blue. (See diagrams shown here and here.)
By using a color wheel as a visual reference, designers can create meaningful relationships such as harmony or tension among color combinations.
A graduated color wheel contains a progressive series of values, or tints and shades, for each color. This visual reference also illustrates that a color’s highest saturation is not the same for each hue. For example, yellow is at its highest intensity toward the lighter end of the scale, while blue is more intense at the darker end of the scale. (See diagrams shown here.)
A graduated color wheel is an effective reference tool for determining combinations of colors that are similar in value or saturation or determining contrast relationships.
A subtle palette of rich, warm colors is evident throughout this admissions viewbook for Middlebury, a liberal arts school in Vermont. Each chapter begins with a typographically bold narrative followed by a series of diagrams, illustrations, and iconic duotone and four-color photographic imagery that gives the reader an understanding of the diversity and varied experiences of the multicultural student body at the school.
PHILOGRAPHICA
Brookline, MA, USA
Vibrant and intense colors, are used in this magazine cover, Latina, to convey the spirit and culture of the Latin experience in Mexico. This message is further communicated with the rich and varied color palette in the circular textile of the cover image as well as its juxtaposition with the intense yellow background color of the cover.
RODRIGO CORRAL DESIGN
New York, NY, USA
Light and Temperature
Color is a property of light and can only be perceived when light is emitted or reflected by an object.
Additive color is created from a light source emitted from a video screen, computer monitor, or theatrical lighting. Additive primary colors are red, green, and blue with all other additive colors derived from them. Combining two additive primary colors creates additive secondary colors such as magenta from red and blue, cyan from blue and green, and yellow from red and green. Combining all three additive primary colors creates white, such as when spotlights of red, green, and blue are focused on the same area or subject. The absence of all additive primary colors—in other words, no light—creates black. RGB (red, green, and blue) is an additive color system used for designing on screen.
Color Wheels and Organizational Categories
This color wheel illustrates the fundamental relationships among colors. The eight smaller color wheels shown here illustrate basic color relationships that can be applied to an infinite number of color palette combinations.
In this well-defined study of analogous colors used in an environmental graphics program for Cincinnati’s Civic Center, color is also used as a metaphor for the Ohio River. It enhances the sense of movement in the river with analogous, saturated blues. These colors appear calming and meditative when used alone, but in this context convey energy and a kinetic movement throughout the center. The main concourse, two city blocks long, and potentially a vacuous and impersonal public space, becomes transformed as a colored canvas on which the river unfolds in wall, ceiling, and floor treatments.
SUSSMAN/PREJZA & COMPANY
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Subtractive color is created from light reflected off a colored or pigmented surface. Subtractive primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. Combining two subtractive primary colors creates subtractive secondary colors: orange from red and yellow, green from yellow and blue, and purple from blue and red. Combining all three subtractive primary colors creates black. The absence of all subtractive primary colors—in other words, no pigment—results in white. CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) is a subtractive color system used in offset printing.
Temperature of a color is also another subjective quality and relates to our visual experience. Colors considered “warm,” such as red, orange, and yellow, remind us of heat and communicate a feeling of warmth. Cool colors such as blue and green remind us of water and nature and communicate a feeling of coolness. Warm colors are brighter and more energetic; cool colors are calmer and more relaxed.
In addition to typography, color is one of the most valuable and influential elements in a graphic designer’s vocabulary. It is a profoundly useful tool and has the power to communicate a wide range of emotions, codify diverse information, and establish an immediate connection with the viewer.
This extensive branding system and global recruiting campaign for a financial services and wealth management firm ranges from poster templates to standardized iconography and data visualization design standards. It relies upon a vivid color palette, striking four-color photography, rigorous page grids, asymmetrical compositions, and sans serif typography to communicate a modern context for the campaign's print and digital media applications.
CARBONE SMOLAN AGENCY
New York, NY, USA
Value and saturation are both critical color considerations in the success of this cover, The Best Creative Nonfiction, Volume 1, for a collection of nonfiction writing. Four distinct colors, three warm and one cool, attract the reader’s attention with a bold visual for the theme of this book, and frame the restrained, small-scale serif typography.
RODRIGO CORRAL DESIGN
New York, NY, USA