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Graphic Design: The New Basics - Colour


  • Colour can convey mood, describe reality or codify information.
  • Colour can be used to make things stand out or to make them disappear.
  • Our perception of colour depends on the pigmentation of physical surfaces as well as the brightness and character of ambient light. It also depends on the colours around it - the same colour can appear different when placed with lighter/darker colours.
  • Colour changes meaning in different cultures - in the West, white signifies purity where as in the East it signifies death.
  • In 1665, Isaac Newton discovered that a prism separates light into a spectrum of colours. 
  • On the colour wheel, colours next to each other are analogous - using them together provides minimal colour contrast and natural harmony (related colour temperature).
  • Two colours opposite each other are complimentary - each colour contains no element of the other and they have opposing temperatures. 
  • The colour wheel is split into primary, secondary and tertiary colours.
  • Attributes of colour:
    • Hue is the place of the colour within the spectrum.
    • Intensity is the brightness or dullness of a colour.
    • Value/tone is the light or dark character of the colour.
    • Shade is a variation of hue produced by adding black.
    • Tint is a variation of hue produced by adding white.
    • Saturation/chroma is the relative purity of the colour as it neutralises to grey.
  • Surfaces absorb certain light waves and reflect back others to the colour receptors in our eyes - this is the light we see.
  • The true primaries of visible light are red, green and blue - not yellow.
  • Printing uses CMYK because the light reflected off the pigments mixes more purely into new hues.
  • When two colours are very close in value, a glowing effect occurs.
  • Must understand how colours interact for design.
  • Creating colour systems supports strong communication in design - palettes often consist of black, white and one or two accent colours.
Design Task 1
For this task I picked a single letterform and created a black and white pattern with it. I then varied the colour to see how it affected the image.




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