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Chapter 1
- 1. Understanding Color: An Introductionfor Designers An Introduction for Designers Chapter 1: An Introduction to Color Study
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- 10. Forms, colors andtheir arrangement are the foundation elements of design, and color is the most powerful.
- 11. A skilled coloristunderstands what color is, how it is seen, why it changes, its suggestive power, and how to apply that knowledge to enhance the marketability of a product.
- 12. Whether the productis a graphic design...
- 13. an item ofapparel...
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- 18. or anything else,good coloring can determine its success or failure in the consumer marketplace.
- 19. Color is, first,a sensory event. Colors are true sensations, not abstractions or ideas. Colors are true sensations, not abstractions or ideas.
- 20. The beginnning ofevery color experience is a physiological response to a stimulus of light.
- 21. Colors are experiencedin two different ways:
- 22. Colors on amonitor or screen are seen as direct light. direct light.
- 23. The colors ofthe physical world - of printed pages, objects, and the environment - are seen as reflected light. reflected light.
- 24. The perception of coloredlight is a straightforward experience: light reaches the eye directly from a light source.
- 25. The experience ofreal-world color is a more complex event.
- 26. Real-world colors areseen indirectly, as light reflected from a surface
- 27. For tangible objectsand printed pages, light is the cause of color, colorants (like paints or dyes) are the means used to generate color, and the colors that are seen are the effect.
- 28. Cause Light Means Colorants Effect Colors Seen
- 29. All colors, whetherthey are seen as direct or reflected light, are unstable. Every change in light or medium has the potential to change the way a color is perceived.
- 30. In addition, noteveryone sees or interprets colors in quite the same way.
- 31. These differences inperception are hard to define except in the cases of extreme visual disfunction (as in color blindness). Normal Red/Green Color Blindness
- 32. Colors are understoodat different levels of awareness.
- 33. Environmental color, whethernatural or man-made, is all-encompassing.
- 34. Yet we areoften unaware of the color around us - even though the color can affect our mood or disposition.
- 35. The separateness ofan object allows the viewer to focus on a single entity and single color idea.
- 36. Graphic colors arethe colors of images: painted, drawn, printed, or on-screen.
- 37. Colors on amonitor screen are seen as direct light.
- 38. But objects areseen as reflected light.
- 39. Since nearly alldesign today is done on a monitor screen which uses direct light, careful consideration must be made of how the designed product will look in reflected light.
- 40. Color has manyuses:
- 41. It can increaseor decrease available light.
- 42. It can modifythe perception of space, creating illusions of size, nearness, separation, or distance. It can also increase or decrease available light.
- 43. It can beused to create continuity between separated elements in design...
- 44. ...to establish emphasisor create focus in a composition.
- 45. Color can expressmood or emotion.
- 46. Colors can beused to alert, to warn, or to provide discrimination between objects of similar form and size.
- 47. It can benonverbal language; communicating ideas without words.
- 48. A color-order model,or color system, is a structured model of color relationships.
- 49. Technical- scientific systems measure color under limited conditions,and most deal with the colors of light.
- 50. Commercial color-order systems aresystematic arrangements of colors meant to assist the user in selecting colors from a limited palette.
- 51. Intellectual-philosophical systems explorethe meaning and organization of color.
- 52. True color systemsattempt to illustrate all colors and include the option of adding colors beyond those illustrated.
- 53. Color collections offera fixed and limited number of colors to help the user in making a selection within a single product or group of related products.
- 54. Color study focusesFIRST on learning to discriminate objective attributes of color:
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- 58. The SECOND focusof color study is color control. color control.
- 59. Color control isthe ability to use color skillfully to facilitate the idea or meaning the designer is trying to create.
- 60. Color study alsoprovides guidelines for creating effective color combinations.
- 61. Many color coursesare based on the writings of Albert Munsell (1858-1918)
- 62. Munsell’s system isbased on formal progressions of hue, value, and saturation.
- 63. The color experimentsof Josef Albers (1888-1976) also inform students of color.
- 64. Albers stressed thepower of eye-training exercises.
- 65. In this course,we will learn about both artists’ systems and how to use them in design.