OUGD404 Colour Theory - Systematic colour part 1 and 2.

Notes informed by Sophie Abell due to being absent.

Introduction to colour.

Tone effects the legibility of text when the wrong colours are chosen, for example yellow on white or green text on a red background. 

Rules of colour.

•  We do not all see colour the same, many of us see it differently.
• The science of how we see light, Physics of optics can dictate the way in which we see colour/light. For example blue has a high and short wavelength whereas red has a high and longer wavelength. 
• The eye contains two types of receptors, one called cones and the other, rods. 
• The rods portray shades of grey whilst the cones allow the brain to perceive colour.
• The 3 types of cones are sensitive to 3 different types of light, the first to red-orange light, the second to green, and the third to blue/violet.
• If both the red-orange cones and green are stimulated at the same time the eye perceives the colour to be yellow.
• Primary red, yellow and green cannot be made from any other colour.
• Secondary colours, Violet, orange and green can be made from mixing other colours (such as the primaries)
• Tertiary colours, can be made from the range of colours between both primaries and secondaries. 

Colour modes

RGB- Colours projected by light - on screen.

CMYK- Cyan, magenta, yellow, key - black is classed as a primary but only as key colour. 

CYMK also refers to physical colours such as, pigments, paints, inks etc.

The eye cannot differentiate between spectral yellow and some combinations of red or green.

The same effect accounts for our perception of Cyan, magenta, and other inbetween spectral colours.

Because of this physiological response the eye can be fooled into seeing the full range of visual colours through the proportional adjustment of the three colours, red, green and blue. 

Image

Subtractive colour- When mixed the colour result is black.

CMYK act as the primaries and RGB as the secondaries. 

Additives - Light RGB you receive white. 

These colour types are related via the ability to see light. 

Complimentary colours are the direct optical colours - Found opposite each other on the colour wheel.

Red - Green

Blue - Orange

Yellow - Violet

Red and green.

Blue and Orange.

Yellow and violet.

Mixed in these pairs they all result in a neutral grey colour, as complimentary colours rule each other out. 

Unfortunately I was absent and unable to participate in the session, however the rest of the class took the 15 objects, in the certain colour they were given, and put them into a physical colour wheel. As a class they arranged the whole set of colours in which had been collected, red, green, blue, orange, violet and yellow. 

To demonstrate this I am using the photo's in which Sophie Abell has produced on her blog:

Part 2 Dimensions of colour.

Chromatic value refers to the system in which we undersand colour.

Chromatic value = Hue + Tone + Saturation

The colour wheel has the same consistent chromatic value throughout, the element that changes is the hue. 

Colour is a reference to the whole chromatic value, whereas Hue is affected by other elements. Tone and saturation need to be considered when talking about hue. 

Chromatic value can be affected by luminance. 

- When you saturate a colour it can change the luminance. 

Bright colours reflect the light where as dull colours absorb the light. 

Therefore when a colours saturation is decreased the colour will absorb more light and when the saturation is increased the colour will reflect more light. 

Pantone

Pantone can be used to distinguish colour in both print and on screen.

Within the pantone system each colour has its own code. 

Although I was not able to pantone swatch the set of items I had brought in due to being off ill for this session. We were able to work with pantone in a later session, where I then took a pantone swatch. \

Although when I swatched the paper in session, it was uncoated pantone 358U seemingly in the photo it matches more towards Pantone 359U.