The perception of color
Friday, April 21st, 2006
The perception of color, in humans and other animals, has been as important a cognitive ability, as far as survival goes, as touch or even taste. From fighting predators to determining the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, the ability to distinguish hues, shades and intensities of color has certainly been a boon to mankind. So it should not be unusual to us that color has the ability to evoke such a strong response from those viewing it.
Moreover, since the human response to color is automatic, having been ingrained over thousands of years of development, a designer ignores purposefully setting a color mood at their own peril.
One of the hardest or most difficult aspects of designing a mood for a piece is determining what colors provoke which response. Does --red-- signify love or anger or warning? Is blue melancholy or just peaceful? Making this even more complicated is the fact that humans can distinguish hundreds of different shades, (i.e., lightness levels) for each different color, (i.e., hue). Luckily though, we can use this ability to distinguish brightness to our advantage.
While we do not necessarily know exactly what feeling/emotions the color --red-- will invoke in anyone individual, we can predict what range, (or gamut) of emotions that specific reaction will fall into. For instance, while we may not know if a person --seeing red-- is in love or angry or cautious, we can safely assume they are neither peaceful nor melancholy. Of course there will be exceptions, but we can be sure for a large part of our audience that the emotional response falls within a certain range. Our job now becomes to steer viewers to specific emotions within a certain broader gamut of feeling. We can perform this task with color schemes. Color schemes are a way of supporting a main color with other colors that help refine the main colors intended meaning. Picasso was a master of this technique, painting several paintings that use only one primary color but at differing brightness levels. Picasso--s "Poor People on the Seashore" is an excellent example of this technique. I don--t suggest going to that extreme each time although it would make good practice. Let--s look at an example.
Suppose we decided in our --seeing red-- example we would want our viewer to start having romantic thoughts. Well besides adding the text, --think romantic thoughts--, we could lead the viewer towards the desired emotional response by adding a field of say --pink-- to the piece, or maybe a picture of bright red roses with earthy green stems, or maybe a close up of chocolates in a dark rich mocha in a sea of intense red. Well what we have done is make a --love themed color scheme of --red, pink, earthy green and chocolate brown--. And the important thing to note is that we are not required to use all of the colors in a color scheme. The main idea is to have the colors pre selected to allow us flexibility in conveying our message to the audience.
The easiest way to create a color scheme is to think of the subject matter of the piece and then choose the main color that comes to mind as you consider the subject. After arriving at the main color, begin to brainstorm and think of the colors that surround that main color when thinking about the subject. (You may not have realized it but humans almost never see a single color on its own, -- unless they are unconscious. Colors are almost always surrounded by other colors.) Generally one would like between 3-5 colors in a color scheme. Although I would only go lower than 3 in extreme cases or as a mental exercise, it is okay to chose as many as 6-8 colors in your scheme.
After you develop the scheme, you may want to tailor it for a specific piece by labeling the colors with their intended uses (e.g., main background, text background, heading text, paragraph text, etc). I use a transparent Photoshop file, the shape tool set to make shape layers and the text tool. I then save the color scheme I the same folder with the project for easy reference or for use as a swatch file.
Another method for creating natural or organic color schemes I've seen used to great effect is this Take a photo of a natural subject, seascape, landscape, flower, animal, or general scenes, such as people at the park, or a portrait in a specific background, such as with a back drip of Broadway or other city lights. Import the photo into Photoshop or another editor that can use Photoshop plug-ins. In Photoshop, use one of the --pixelate-- filters under Filters>Pixelate. Try --Crystallize-- or --Mosaic-- at a cell size of 200 on a picture of a sunset or ocean scene.
One of the hardest or most difficult aspects of designing a mood for a piece is determining what colors provoke which response. Does --red-- signify love or anger or warning? Is blue melancholy or just peaceful? Making this even more complicated is the fact that humans can distinguish hundreds of different shades, (i.e., lightness levels) for each different color, (i.e., hue). Luckily though, we can use this ability to distinguish brightness to our advantage.
While we do not necessarily know exactly what feeling/emotions the color --red-- will invoke in anyone individual, we can predict what range, (or gamut) of emotions that specific reaction will fall into. For instance, while we may not know if a person --seeing red-- is in love or angry or cautious, we can safely assume they are neither peaceful nor melancholy. Of course there will be exceptions, but we can be sure for a large part of our audience that the emotional response falls within a certain range. Our job now becomes to steer viewers to specific emotions within a certain broader gamut of feeling. We can perform this task with color schemes. Color schemes are a way of supporting a main color with other colors that help refine the main colors intended meaning. Picasso was a master of this technique, painting several paintings that use only one primary color but at differing brightness levels. Picasso--s "Poor People on the Seashore" is an excellent example of this technique. I don--t suggest going to that extreme each time although it would make good practice. Let--s look at an example.
Suppose we decided in our --seeing red-- example we would want our viewer to start having romantic thoughts. Well besides adding the text, --think romantic thoughts--, we could lead the viewer towards the desired emotional response by adding a field of say --pink-- to the piece, or maybe a picture of bright red roses with earthy green stems, or maybe a close up of chocolates in a dark rich mocha in a sea of intense red. Well what we have done is make a --love themed color scheme of --red, pink, earthy green and chocolate brown--. And the important thing to note is that we are not required to use all of the colors in a color scheme. The main idea is to have the colors pre selected to allow us flexibility in conveying our message to the audience.
The easiest way to create a color scheme is to think of the subject matter of the piece and then choose the main color that comes to mind as you consider the subject. After arriving at the main color, begin to brainstorm and think of the colors that surround that main color when thinking about the subject. (You may not have realized it but humans almost never see a single color on its own, -- unless they are unconscious. Colors are almost always surrounded by other colors.) Generally one would like between 3-5 colors in a color scheme. Although I would only go lower than 3 in extreme cases or as a mental exercise, it is okay to chose as many as 6-8 colors in your scheme.
After you develop the scheme, you may want to tailor it for a specific piece by labeling the colors with their intended uses (e.g., main background, text background, heading text, paragraph text, etc). I use a transparent Photoshop file, the shape tool set to make shape layers and the text tool. I then save the color scheme I the same folder with the project for easy reference or for use as a swatch file.
Another method for creating natural or organic color schemes I've seen used to great effect is this Take a photo of a natural subject, seascape, landscape, flower, animal, or general scenes, such as people at the park, or a portrait in a specific background, such as with a back drip of Broadway or other city lights. Import the photo into Photoshop or another editor that can use Photoshop plug-ins. In Photoshop, use one of the --pixelate-- filters under Filters>Pixelate. Try --Crystallize-- or --Mosaic-- at a cell size of 200 on a picture of a sunset or ocean scene.
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