The Color Wheel is a visual representation of color theory. It is the color spectrum wrapped onto a circle.

It creates an orderly progression of color that helps us understand color balance and harmony.

The purpose of the Color Wheel is to create visual combinations and complements.

Color Wheels show relationships between colors that can be used to achieve both balance and contrast.

The current Color Wheel consists of 12 colors

red

yellowblue

The current Color Wheel has three primary colors

The current Color Wheel has three secondary colors

purple orange

green

The current Color Wheel has six tertiary colors

red orangeviolet red

orange yellowblue violet(indigo)

yellow green (chartreuse)blue green (aquamarine)

Warm vs Cool Colors

Warm colors are vivid in nature. They are bold and energetic (the sun, bright flowers). Warm colors come forward in a composition.

Cool colors are soothing in nature (water, a field of green grass). Cool colors recede in a composition.

COOL

WARM

Warm vs Cool Colors

Harmonious Color Schemes

A Monochromatic Color Scheme uses variations in light-ness and saturation of a single color.

Monochromatic colors go well together, producing a soothing effect (especially greens or blues).

You can use it to establish an overall mood.

Pros: The monochromatic scheme is easy to manage, and always looks balanced and visually appealing.

Cons: This scheme lacks color contrast. It is not as vibrant as other schemes.

A Monochromatic Color Scheme

Tips: Use tints, shades, and shifts in saturation to enhance the scheme.

The Analogous Color Scheme uses colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel.

One color is used as a dominant color while others are used to enrich the scheme. The analogous scheme is similar to the monochromatic one, but offers more nuances.

Pros: The analogous color scheme is as easy to create as the monochromatic, but looks richer.

Cons: The analogous color scheme lacks color contrast. It is not as vibrant as the complementary scheme.

The Analogous Color Scheme

Tips: Avoid using too many hues in the analogous scheme, because this may ruin the harmony. Two or three works well.

Avoid combining warm and cool colors.

The Complementary Color Scheme is made of two colors that are opposite each other on the Color Wheel. This scheme looks best when you put a warm color against a cool color, for example, orange vs. blue.

The complementary scheme is intrinsically high-contrast.

When using the complementary scheme, it is important to choose a dominant color and use its complementary color for accents.

(mixing complementary colors in paint gives you middle grey)

The Complementary Color Scheme...

Pros: The complementary color scheme offers stronger contrast than any other color scheme, and draws maximum attention.

Cons: This scheme is harder to balance than monochromatic and analogous schemes. Type set in complementary colors is very hard to read.

this is hard to read

don’t you agree?

The Complementary Color Scheme

Tips: 1) For best results, put cool colors against

warm ones, for example, blue versus orange.

2) If you use a warm color (red or yellow) as an accent, you can desaturate the opposite cool colors to put more emphasis on the warm colors.

3) Avoid using desaturated warm colors (e.g. browns or dull yellows).

The Split Complementary Scheme is a variation of the standard complementary scheme. It uses a color and the two colors adjacent to its complementary. This provides high contrast without the strong tension of the complementary scheme.

Pros: The split complementary scheme offers more nuances than the complementary scheme while retaining strong visual contrast.

Cons: The split complementary scheme is harder to balance than monochromatic and analogous color schemes.

The Split Complementary Scheme

Tips:1) Use a single warm color against

a range of cool colors to put an emphasis on the warm color (red versus blues and blue-greens, or orange versus blues and blue-violets).

2) Avoid using desaturated warm colors (e.g. browns or dull yellows).

The Triadic Color Scheme uses three colors equally spaced around the color wheel. This scheme is popular among designers because it offers strong visual contrast while retaining balance, and color richness. The triadic scheme is not as contrasting as the complementary scheme, but it looks more balanced and harmonious.

Pros: The triadic color scheme offers high contrast while retaining harmony.

Cons: The triadic color scheme is not as contrasting as the complementary scheme.

The Triadic Color Scheme

Tips:1) Choose one color to be used in

larger amounts than others.2) If the colors look gaudy, try to

subdue them by adjusting value or saturation.

The Tetradic Color Scheme (also known as Double Complementary) is the richest of all the schemes because it uses four colors arranged into two complementary color pairs. This scheme is hard to harmonize; if all four colors are used in equal amounts, the scheme may look unbalanced, so you should choose a color to be dominant or subdue the colors.

Pros: The tetradic scheme offers more color variety than any other scheme.

Cons: This one is the hardest scheme to balance.

The Tetradic Color Scheme

Tips:1) If the scheme looks unbalanced,

try to subdue one or more colors.

2) Avoid using pure colors in equal amounts.

Color Systems

Color systems are dependent on the medium with which a designer is working. When painting, an artist has a variety of paints to choose from, and mixed colors are achieved through the subtractive color method. When a designer is utilizing the computer to generate digital media, colors are achieved with the additive color method.

Digital media presents some problems when attempting to reproduce compositions in a printed format. Since digital designs are generated using the RGB color system, colors used in those designs must be part of the CMYK color sys-tem or they will not be reproduced with proper color rendering.

The Subtractive Color System

When mixing colors using paint, or through the printing pro-cess, we are using the subtractive color method.

Subtractive color mixing means that one begins with white and ends with black; as one adds color, the result gets darker and tends to black.

The CMYK color system is the color system used for print-ing and is an example of the subtractive color method. The colors used in the printing process during reproduction are cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

The Subtractive Color System (continued)

The CMYK color system: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black.100% of CMY gives you BLACK.

CMYK is used for offset printing.

The Additive Color System

If you are working on a computer, the colors you see on screen are created with light using the additive color method.

Additive color mixing begins with black and ends with white, meaning that as more color is added, the result is lighter and tends to white.

Why this Matters

Reproducing color can be problematic with regard to print and digital media, because what we see is not always what is possible to get.

Since digital designs are generated using the RGB color sys-tem, colors used in those designs might not be reproduced accurately on paper with the CMYK print method.

(this is why it’s important to use the correct color settings within your programs and to calibrate your monitor on a regu-lar basis.)

“ Color is like cooking. The cook puts in more or less salt, that’s the difference.”

—Josef Albers