Use of colours and visual elements

1.    Introduction

In this 21^st century, colors have become the main element of graphic design. Can you imagine graphic design without colors? Without colors, the design will become transparent, even black and white can be consider as a color. We can find colors almost everywhere and most of them looks beautiful in our eye. We can’t separate from colors and any other visual elements. It is what makes flower become beautiful, buildings become elegant or rich in texture and a lot of shapes, mountain scenery looks stunning and many more. In this write up, I will conduct a background studies about uses of colors and visual elements.  

2.    Color Wheel

Color wheel or color circle consist of three main colors which are red, blue, and yellow. Sir Isaac Newton was the person who designed the first circular color diagram in 1666 (colormatters.com, 2013). Since then, there are a lot of studies and designs from scientists and artists about this concept. However, the majority color wheel is based on the RYB color model which consist of 12 colors (tigercolor.com, 2013). There are three different definitions or categories based on the color wheel which are primary colors, secondary colors, and tertiary colors (tigercolor.com, 2013).

Ø  Primary colors consist of three colors, red, blue, and yellow.

Ø  Secondary colors are a combination of two colors in primary colors. The colors result from this combination are purple (red + blue), green (blue + yellow), and orange (red + yellow).

Ø  Tertiary colors are also a combination of two colors, but the one which make it is different from secondary colors is that the type of colors. For secondary colors, it stated that the combination of two primary colors, however tertiary colors are created by combining primary and secondary colors. The results are red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, and etc.

Beside categories based on color wheel, there are some term we can find from this colors, which are warm colors, cool colors, tints, shades, and tones. Warm colors more toward to energetic and vivid. In the other hand, cool colors more toward to calm condition or harmony. As for white, black, and gray are considered as neutral colors.

Tints, shades, and tones are three terms that often used incorrectly (tigercolor.com, 2013). Tints are the lighter color that come from adding white color to pure color like adding white to blue or orange. The darker color that comes after adding black color to pure color is called shades. And the last term is tones which is the result after we added gray color to the pure color. Pictures below are the examples of tints, shades, and tones.

Tints

Shades

Tones

3.    Color Harmonies

We can describe color harmonies as some colors that seen together and it produced a pleasant response like when we write something using black pen color on a white paper and it will make easier for us to read it. Another example of color harmonies is flower. Most of the time, flower’s color has a brighter color than the surrounding areas. There are six techniques that we can use for creating a color harmony or color scheme based on color wheel. Complementary color scheme, analogous color scheme, triadic color scheme, split-complementary color scheme, rectangle (tetradic) color scheme, and square color scheme are the six techniques (tigercolor.com, 2013).

• Complementary color scheme consists of two different colors that are opposite to each other on the color wheel such as red and green. This technique will create maximum contrast and maximum stability to the object. It is very useful when you want something to stand out, however it is not recommended for text using.

• Analogous color scheme created from colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. These three colors usually match well and create comfortable designs, and we often found analogous color scheme in nature and pleasing to the eye. We need to have enough contrast when we choosing analogous color scheme. Choose one color to dominate the object, one to support the color, and one to use (along with black, white or gray) as an accent.

• Triadic color scheme uses colors that are equally spread out around the color wheel or able to create a perfect triangle shape. This color scheme tend to be quite vibrant. To make triadic color scheme work perfectly, the color should be wisely composed. Choose one color to dominate and other two for accent.

• Split-complementary color scheme is another variation of complementary color scheme. Another variation means it has two colors adjacent to its complement compare to complementary color scheme which only has one color adjacent to its complement. This color scheme will create a same strong visual contrast with complementary color scheme, however it has lesser tension compare to complementary. This technique or method is suitable for beginners because it is difficult to mess up.

• Rectangle (tetradic) color scheme is a combination of two complementary color that make a rectangle shape from the color wheel. It has rich color scheme and offers plenty of options for variation. To make this color scheme look perfect, we should pay attention to the balance of the warm and cool colors.

• Square color scheme is the last technique or method of color choosing. This method almost the same with triadic color scheme, the only thing that make it different is the number of color we use. From the name we can know that it uses four colors from color wheel that create a square shape. Almost the same with rectangle color scheme, this color scheme works best when we put one color as dominant color. This method also need to pay attention to the balance of the warm and cool colors.

4.    Color Symbolism Chart

                      Red = love, power, strength, blood, fire, desire.

                      Blue = calm, water, peace, cold, loyalty, sky.

                     Yellow = happiness, idealism, betrayal, illness, jealousy, summer.

                     Green = nature, environment, youth, peace, harmony, eternity.

                     White = pure, clean, peace, innocent, winter, snow, death (eastern), marriage (western).

                    Black = darkness, evil, wealth, elegance, formality, mystery, death (western).

                    Gray = solid, sadness, maturity, dignity, security.

5.    Visual Elements

Visual elements can be describe as a visible character that contribute to the appearance of a design such as line, shape, form, color, value, and texture.

5.1 Lines

Lines are the basic building blocks in graphic design (smallbusiness.chron.com, 2013). It can be made from pencil, pen, mouse, brush or any other tool. It can create a shape, outline, texture, and can be thin line or thick line. There are several types of line such as actual line, contour line, and implied or psychic line (incredibleart.com, 2013).

1.     Actual line

This is the normal line that we usually draw by pencil, pen, or other tools. We can see the thickness, length, and continuous mark from this line whether it is straight, curved, or dashed.

2.      Contour line

An outline, or internal line. This is the line where we can easily find it from a shape or form of an object.

3.      Implied or Psychic line

As we can understand from the name, this is not an actual physical line. Means the line is psychological, when we pointing at something, our eye will travels from our hand to the object as if on a line or when we throw a ball, we can see the line that it created when the ball travel through the air before it hit the ground.

5.2 Shape

Shapes are different from form. We can see the differences from the dimension of the object. Shapes are two-dimensional object, and forms are three-dimensional object. As we know for two-dimensional object only has height and length. Example of shapes are rectangle, triangle, square, circle, pentagon, and etc. There are two types of shape, organic shape and geometric shape. Organic shape means it comes from the nature and it is not made by people, as for geometric shape can be made from people or come from nature. Illustrations below are example of organic shape and geometric shape.

5.3 Form

A three-dimensional object that has a volume and thickness. Form can be seen from many different angles and we can apply use of light ant shading technique to create a 3-D effect.

5.4 Color

Color is one of the most important element in graphic design. Different color has a different meaning based on the purpose like religious, holiday, emotion, and etc. Colors can be divide into two type based on color wheel, warm and cool colors. Some color scheme techniques can be find in use of colors, such as tints, shades, tones, complementary, analogous, triadic, split-complementary, rectangle, and square color scheme.

5.5 Value

Value can be describe as the lightness or darkness of a color. Black and white have most important role in here. High contrast, low contrast, and black and white are considered as value. Changing value of a color can make a two-dimensional object looks like three-dimensional object.

5.6 Texture

Texture is one of the visual element that we can see every day. Wood pattern, dry land pattern, wall pattern are several types of texture. Texture can be visual and tactile.

6.    Conclusion and lesson learn

Through this background studies I have learnt that colors are important in our life and graphic design. We can find lots of types of colors and different color resemble a different meaning. Red for love, blue for calm, yellow for happiness, green for environment, white for peace, and so on. However, some colors have a different meaning in a different countries, for example white and black have a different meaning in Eastern and Western countries. There are several technique that we can apply when we want to choose colors that we want to use, such as complementary which two colors that opposite to each other in color wheel, analogous which choose from color that next to each other, triadic which colors that make a perfect triangle in color wheel, split-complementary which is another variation of complementary, rectangle which uses pair of complementary color scheme, and lastly is square which color chosen from four colors that make a perfect square shape. Visual elements consist of lines, shapes, forms, textures, value, and colors.

Last but not least, color used methods, types of colors, types of visual elements are the three elements that we always see. Colors can make us easy to learn something because it has been in our daily life.

7.    References

Basic color schemes: Color Theory Introduction. 2013. Basic color schemes: Color Theory Introduction. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theory-intro.htm. [Accessed 22 September 2013].

Basic Color Theory. 2013. Basic Color Theory. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory. [Accessed 22 September 2013].

Symbolism of Color: Using Color for Meaning. 2013. Symbolism of Color: Using Color for Meaning. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/middle/color2.htm. [Accessed 22 September 2013].

Visual Arts: Elements and Principles of Design. 2013. Visual Arts: Elements and Principles of Design. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.incredibleart.org/files/elements2.htm. [Accessed 23 September 2013].

Elements of ART . 2013. Elements of ART . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.johnchiappone.com/elements_of_art.html. [Accessed 23 September 2013].