Mark Boulton

In the last part of this Simple Steps series I talked about design­ing without col­our. But before apply­ing col­our, it’s always a good idea to have a basic under­stand­ing of col­our the­ory. There is a great deal of com­plex ter­min­o­logy sur­round­ing col­our the­ory, so in this part I’m going to out­line some of the basics.

In any book on col­our I’ve read, this chapter was without doubt always the most com­plic­ated: Col­our The­ory. At its heart, col­our the­ory is con­cerned with the cre­ation of col­our com­bin­a­tions via rela­tion­ships. The rela­tion­ships are cre­ated by the pos­i­tion of the col­ours on the col­our wheel. The com­plex­ity of col­our the­ory really kicks in when you start tak­ing into account dif­fer­ent hues, shades and tones. It can all get a bit too much. So here, I’m keep­ing things very simple and I’m start­ing at the begin­ning with primary colours. 

Primary col­ours

Primary col­ours

Primary col­ours can be divided into two dif­fer­ent types: Addit­ive and Sub­tract­ive. The addit­ive primar­ies are those which are obtained by light; red, green and blue. They com­bine to form white and form the basis of col­ours on screen (your TV works in RGB, as does your com­puter screen). Sub­tract­ive primar­ies are those obtained by the sub­trac­tion of light: cyan, majenta and yel­low. They form the basis for four col­our print­ing and com­bine to form black, the K in CMYK.

Primary col­ours overlays

The addit­ive primar­ies com­bine (as shown in the dia­gram below) and where they over­lap, the sec­ond­ary col­ours, these are the sub­tract­ive primar­ies. The same hap­pens when the sub­tract­ive primar­ies overlap. 

The Col­our Wheel

Now this little chest­nut has been part of my life for about, ooo, twenty years. I remem­ber paint­ing my first col­our wheel in sec­ond­ary school. I had abso­lutely no idea why I was paint­ing one (other than being told to) and how it would help me in my work. Even today, the prac­tical use of col­our wheels in every day design situ­ations is ques­tion­able. How­ever, the famili­ar­ity of a col­our wheel will cer­tainly help you under­stand where col­our palettes come from. 

The col­our wheel

The col­our wheel not only helps under­stand the rela­tion­ship of dif­fer­ent col­ours but also the clas­si­fic­a­tion of col­ours. It also, as I said, provides a quick ref­er­ence to the primary, sec­ond­ary and ter­tiary hues. 

Primary, Sec­ond­ary and Ter­tiary colours

The primary, sec­ond­ary and ter­tiary hues are shown in the dia­gram below. As you can see, it’s pretty straight-forward to see how each is pro­duced; Primarys com­bined cre­ate Sec­ond­ary col­ours. Ter­tiary col­ours are cre­ated by com­bin­ing a Primary and a Sec­ond­ary. Things start to get inter­est­ing when you isol­ate dif­fer­ent com­bin­a­tions of col­ours and this is when we get into the realms of col­our wheel selections. 

Primary, Sec­ond­ary and Ter­tiary colours

Col­our Wheel Selections

Col­ours, when selec­ted from from the col­our­wheel in cer­tain com­bin­a­tions, inter­act together. This is the basis of col­our palettes; the inter­ac­tion of col­ours. Know­ing the basis of these col­our com­bin­a­tion types is essen­tial in cre­at­ing palettes. True, you can rely on gut instinct (as many design­ers do), but more often than not these decisions are based on exper­i­ence of see­ing these col­our com­bin­a­tions every­where in every­day life. Really, once you start to notice these dif­fer­ent com­bin­a­tions, it will drive you bonkers. 

Mono­chrome

Mono­chrome selec­tions are simply one col­our from the col­our wheel. 

Mono­chrome colours

Com­ple­ment­ary

Com­ple­ment­ary col­ours are con­trast­ing col­ours. Some­times they look hor­rible, they can really not work. How­ever, some­times, they are just the ticket. I gen­er­ally use them if I want a vibrancy in a palette or if I need to draw the read­ers eye to some­thing. Hues of these col­ours work great as a high­light col­our. They are defined by the col­ours oppos­ing each other on the col­our wheel. 

Com­ple­ment­ary col­ours are oppos­ing col­ours on the col­our wheel

Tri­ads

Tri­ads are really inter­est­ing. They provide a real ten­sion in a col­our­way as their strength is pretty much equal. Using tri­ads in dif­fer­ing hues is where they come into their own though. Triad col­ours are any three col­ours which are equidistant on the col­our wheel. As all three col­ours con­trast with one another they can clash and this is where the ten­sion is created. 

Triad col­our com­bin­a­tions provide ten­sion in a design

Other col­our wheel selections

There are other selec­tions which can be used to form palettes: Ana­log­ous, Mutual com­pli­ments, near com­ple­ments and double com­ple­ments. How­ever, prac­tic­ally, I rarely use these con­ciously. Ana­log­ous col­ours for example are col­ours which sit either side of a selec­ted col­our on the col­our wheel. Choos­ing these col­ours for example, is a fairly uncon­cious decision for any designer as they appear around us nat­ur­ally so often (think sim­ilar tones in nature for example). 

Com­ing up

So, now we have design­ing without col­our and train­ing your eye to see just tone, and we have the basic ter­min­o­logy of col­our the­ory. Next up, we’re going to apply them to cre­at­ing col­our com­bin­a­tions; the basics of palette creation.