Using Color in Communication Design Created by J. Shannon Info from “The Non-Designers Design...

Using Color in Communication Design

Created by J. ShannonInfo from “The Non-Designers Design Book”

by Robin Williams, 3rd edition, 2008

Review: Color Wheel

• Primary Colors– Red– Blue– Yellow

Review: Color Wheel

• Secondary Colors– Orange– Purple– Green

Review: Color Wheel

• Intermediate Colors– Yellow-Green– Blue-Green– Purple-Blue– Red-Purple– Red-Orange– Yellow Orange

Review: Color Wheel Relationships

• Complementary colors are the colors directly across from each other on the color wheel. The opposites or complmentaries– Blue and orange– Red and Green– Yellow and purple


• Triads are a set of three colors equidistant from each other on the wheel.

• Primary triad• Secondary Triad• All other triads have

underlying colors that connect them which make them very visually pleasing.


• Split Triads are three colors.

• Choose a color from one side of the wheel, find it’s compliment directly across but use the two colors on each side of the compliment.

• Creates a more sophisticated look.


• Analogous Colors are the colors next to each other on the wheel.


• Hues, Shades and Tints

• The Hues are the pure colors

• Shades are the hues with black added

• Tints are the hues with white added


• Monochromatic Colors are the hues of one color and it’s corresponding tints and shades.

Tone

• Tone refers to the brightness or deepness of a color

• Two very similar tones can be hard to read in a text.

• Try not to bump tones up together and don’t use the same amounts of each.

Tone too Similar

Tones are Good

Warm & Cool Colors

Where to start when you are choosing colors

• Ask some of the following questions :– Is this a seasonal project?– Are there official company colors?– Does your project include a photograph or

other image?– Choose a color from the image or photograph– If the project is over a long period, pick a color

palet to refer to often– CMYK vs RGB

CMYK vs. RGB

• Print vs Web• CMYK stands for Cyan (blue), Magenta

(red), Yellow and the key color which is black. In ink you can print many thousands of colors

• Four-color process• RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue and

are the colors on your computer monitor, television, iphone etc.

Using Color in Communication Design Created by J. Shannon Info from “The Non-Designers Design...

Documents

Transcript of Using Color in Communication Design Created by J. Shannon Info from “The Non-Designers Design...