Colour in design is very subjective and a key element of the overall look and feel of a given design. More often than not it is a personal preference as to what looks nice and what doesn’t. Colour theory is a science and there is a lot to it, simply changing the saturation or exact hue can give a totally different look and feeling. Firstly I will look at the meaning behind different colour families including warm, cool and neutral giving some examples of how these are used.
Warm colours include red, orange and yellow along with all variations of these. Red and yellow are both primary colours with orange falling in between meaning they are truly warm and not created by combining a warm colour with a cool colour.
Cool colours include blue, green, and purple, are often more subdued than warm colours. Blue is the only primary colour within the cool spectrum, which means the other colours are created by combining blue with a warm colour, yellow for green and red for purple, thus greens take on some of the attributes of yellow, and purple takes on some of the attributes of red.
Neutral colours often serve as the backdrop in design. They’re commonly combined with brighter accent colours. But they can also be used on their own in designs, and can create very sophisticated layouts.
Black is the strongest of the neutral colours and white falls at the other end of the spectrum. In design, black is commonly used for typography and other functional parts, because of its neutrality. Black can make it easier to convey a sense of sophistication and mystery in a design where white is generally considered a neutral backdrop that lets other colours in a design have a larger voice.
Other neutral colours include grey, brown, beige, ivory and cream. Grey is generally considered on the cool end of the colour spectrum and light greys can be used in place of white in some designs, and dark greys can be used in place of black. Brown is a completely natural colour and a warm neutral, often used in design to convey texture including wood and stone. Beige is somewhat unique in that it can take on cool or warm tones depending on the colours surrounding it. It has the warmth of brown and the coolness of white. Again commonly used in backgrounds and especially where a paper texture look is needed. Ivory and cream are sophisticated colours, with some of the warmth of brown and a lot of the coolness of white, often used to tone down the stark contrast of using pure white.
In summary the way in which colours are used and interact with each other in design is a key element to an overall look and feel, in future posts I will discuss how design is also affected by elements such as hue, saturation, shades and tones all of which add to the complexity of an overall design.