This week we chose to focus on colour as an aspect of graphic design.

By watching this video, we were able to learn that colour is an important aspect of graphic design and that colour is all around us. Colour can evoke a certain mood or emotion and therefore it is important to understand the basics. Colour theory is something that we learn from a young age. Colour theory is primary (red, blue, yellow) and secondary (orange, green, purple) colours.

The main components of colour to consider are:

• Hue → the colour itself (ex. blue)
• Saturation → how intense the colour is (ex. turquoise vs. navy)
• Value → how dark or light a colour is on a scale going from white to black

The colour wheel is a key element to learning about colour. By using the colour wheel, we are able to achieve colour harmony. There are several different types of colour harmony:

• Monochromatic – one colour/hue, these colours will always match (ex. red and pink)
• Analogous – colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel (ex. red and orange)
• Complimentary – colours that are opposite on the colour wheel, this adds variety (ex. blue and orange)
• Split Complimentary – three colours using the ones on either side of the compliment, to form a triangle (ex. red, green yellow, green blue)
• Triadic – three colours that are evenly separated, creates a sticking effect (ex. orange, purple, green)
• Tetradic – four colours that create a rectangle on the wheel, two complementary pairs, often one will dominate and the others will serve as accents (ex. purple, orange, yellow, blue)

Here are some final tips for working with colours:

• make sure your colours are readable and letters can be seen
• too much colour can be overwhelming
• balance colours with white, black, and grey
• consider the tone of the message you are sending (less saturation can be more professional looking)

Some colour palettes: