OUGD404 Design Principles- Colour thoery session and question & answer

We looked at the pieces of graphic design we had brought into class with the view to determining the print methods used for the examples and with additional aid of our pantone books determine whether it was formula or 4 colour process (CMYK). We used a linen tester as shown below. 

Linen tester - a good tool for identifying method of printing

Looking through the linen tester we identified that we could see circular dots and in some instances hexogans on the CMYK prints. 

CMYK print process

In print you have a plate for each colour representation in the CMYK colour mode, so C (cyan) is one plate, M (magenta) is one plate, Y (yellow) is one plate and K (black) is one plate. CMYK is based on the idea of optical mixing, when you mix the different plates an illusion happens in our eyes. The 4 plates layers up the colours. We looked at 4 prints each representing the CMYK colours:

C

M

Y

K

which when all four plates are used creates the full colour scheme

Why is the most legible colour for type? Legibility and readability are fundamental to successful typographic design. Often the terms are used interchangeably. Yet, there is a difference between them. I think that the most legible colour for type depends on what size or colour background you are using it on.

Why does background colour change when different objects are put in front of it? Using to colours at the same time influences both of there appearances the reason is - Simultaneous contrast  which refers to the manner in which the colours of two different objects affect each other. The effect is more noticeable when shared between objects of complementary colour. 

What is the difference between tone and saturation? with tone, look at a colour wheel that is in greyscale, this shows you how high or low the contrast is between two colours so a bright blue and a bright red have a low tonal contrast because they are similar when in greyscale where as De-saturation is less colour saturation is more colour so you can compare these against each other to see how much contrast there is between them.

Why do colours force out there complimentary colours?  colours that appear together will be altered as if mixed with a complimentary colour of the other colour. The mixture of the two is predicted by the straight line between the two for eg. if red was placed on blue it would project an orange tint.

How many colours can one use? It depends what type of design you are creating i think its important to use minimal use of colours so the use of colours doesn't over shadow the content.

Where does colour come from? Why do we see colors? Light from the sun or from a lamp seems to have no particular color of its own. It appears simply to be "white" light. However, if you pass the light through a prism, you can see that it actually contains all colors, the same effect that occurs when water droplets in the atmosphere separate light into a rainbow. A colorful object such as a leaf appears green because when white light strikes it, the leaf reflects only the green wavelengths of light and absorbs the others. A white object such as a white flower appears white because it reflects most of the wavelengths that strike it, absorbing relatively few. Inks, dyes, or pigments in color prints also selectively absorb and reflect certain wavelengths of light and so produce the effect of colour.

simplest way to balance colour? using the contrast of extension will help to balance colour and make it more appropriate to the content.


5 Group Questions:
Why do colours force out complimentary colours? In terms of seeing one colour , putting too colours together getting a neutral tone. e.g. purple and yellow

Simplest way to balance colour?   using the contrast of extension will help to balance colour and make it more appropriate to the content. 

Is it always a case of contrast of tone + hue working together? yes

How many colours can one use? as many as you want , (3 colour combination) the more type or colours your put into a piece of a design , can get in the way of you communicating. Use up to 7 plates CYMK 2 sit varnishes and a gloss.

If everyone perceives colour differently does this mean we perceive contrast differently? theres no definite answer for this because no one can actually see through other peoples eyes so this can't be proven.

my question to answer was How many colours can one use? i first went about refining the question to make it more specific and relevant.

What is the maximum amount of colours that you should use in design? this question is much more focussed and answers the question that i think the other group were trying to ask.

these are my findings:

There is no fixed answer to this question and a good designer can get away with almost any number of colors. In general, however, the risk of using too many colors is greater than the risk of using too few.

A color scheme with many colors is difficult to manage well and will often make the design look too busy. On the other hand, too few colors can make the design look boring. This is not always the case, however, we have seen masterful designs using only two colors. 

Try to make your design with only three colors

A three color combination is a good starting point. This is enough to create variation and visual interest. A triadic color scheme where the colors are equally spaced around the color circle is a good choice for beginners because it is easy to get good results. The split complimentary color scheme is another good alternative. 

Apply the 60 - 30 - 10 rule for success

You should not use equal amounts of the three colors. An old designer's rule is to divide the colors into percentages of 60, 30, and 10.

The primary color should cover about 60% of the space and create the overall unifying theme of the design. Then add about 30% of the secondary color to create contrast and visual interest. Finally use about 10% of the accent color to provide that final touch of elegance.
A good example of this distribution of color is a man's business suit: 60% of the outfit is made up of the slacks and jacket. The shirt represents 30%, and the tie 10%.

Need more colors?

Sometimes a design require more than three colors. This is especially true for content rich web pages, brochures, etc where you need to visually separate side bars, captions, tables etc from other content. A good alternative is to use shades and tints of your main colors. You can easily do this in ColorImpact using the color variations mode:

1. Drag one or more colors to the top row.
2. To find a light background color, set the variation type to "Less saturated and lighter". For a dark color, use variation type "darker" or "more saturated and darker".
3. Set the "Steps" setting to 16 and the "Variation strength" to 1.00.
4. Pick one or more variation colors and add them to the color palette.

The example below illustrates how this technique can be used to create a colored table using shades and tints.

Another answer to the question could be that the client has asked for a specific amount of colour, in which case you should adhere to what they say, and lastly in many cases it comes down to cost, especially when printing CMYK. When printing in CMYK you pay for the amount of plates you use, each plate costs money. Therefore reducing the amount of plates needed to do the print reduces the cost of priniting significantly, in this case it would be sensible to Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or black, as these are the primary colours of the printing and are each only worth one plate.