Color scheme
Encyclopedia
Color theory
In the visual arts, color theory is a body of practical guidance to color mixing and the visual impacts of specific color combinations. Although color theory principles first appeared in the writings of Leone Battista Alberti and the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci , a tradition of "colory theory"...
, a color scheme is the choice of color
Color
Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...
s used in design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
for a range of media. For example, the use of a white background with black text is an example of a basic and commonly default
Default (computer science)
A default, in computer science, refers to a setting or value automatically assigned to a software application, computer program or device, outside of user intervention. Such settings are also called presets, especially for electronic devices...
color scheme in web design
Web design
Web design is the process of planning and creating a website. Text, images, digital media and interactive elements are used by web designers to produce the page seen on the web browser...
.
Color schemes are used to create style and appeal. Colors that create an aesthetic
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
feeling when used together will commonly accompany each other in color schemes. A basic color scheme will use two colors that look appealing together. More advanced color schemes involve several colors in combination, usually based around a single color; for example, text with such colors as red, yellow, orange and light blue arranged together on a black background in a magazine article.
Color schemes can also contain different shades of a single color; for example, a color scheme that mixes different shades of green, ranging from very light (almost white) to very dark.
Use of the phrase color scheme may also and commonly does refer to choice and use of colors used outside typical aesthetic media and context, although may still be used for purely aesthetic effect as well as for purely practical reasons. This most typically refers to color patterns and designs as seen on vehicles, particularly those used in the military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
when concerning color patterns and designs used for identification of friend or foe
Identification friend or foe
In telecommunications, identification, friend or foe is an identification system designed for command and control. It is a system that enables military and national interrogation systems to identify aircraft, vehicles, or forces as friendly and to determine their bearing and range from the...
, identification of specific military units, or as camouflage
Camouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
.
A color scheme in marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
is referred to as a trade dress
Trade dress
Trade dress is a legal term of art that generally refers to characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging that signify the source of the product to consumers...
and can be sometimes be copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
ed, as is the pink
Pink
Pink is a mixture of red and white. Commonly used for Valentine's Day and Easter, pink is sometimes referred to as "the color of love." The use of the word for the color known today as pink was first recorded in the late 17th century....
color of Owens-Corning fiberglass
Fiberglass
Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...
.
On the color wheel
Color schemes are often described in terms of logical combinations of colors on a color wheelColor wheel
A color wheel or color circle is an abstract illustrative organization of color hues around a circle that shows relationships between primary colors, secondary colors, complementary colors, etc....
. Different types of schemes are used.
Monochromatic color scheme
A monochromatic colorMonochromatic color
Monochromatic colors are all the colors of a single hue. Monochromatic color schemes are derived from a single base hue, and extended using its shades, tones and tints Monochromatic colors are all the colors (tints, tones, and shades) of a single hue. Monochromatic color schemes are derived from a...
scheme consists of different values (tints and shades
Tints and shades
In color theory, a tint is the mixture of a color with white, which increases lightness, and a shade is the mixture of a color with black, which reduces lightness...
) of one single color. These color schemes are easy to get right and can be very effective, soothing and authoritative. They do, however, lack the diversity of hues found in other color schemes and are less vibrant.
Analogous color scheme
Complementary color scheme
Complementary colorComplementary color
Complementary colors are pairs of colors that are of “opposite” hue in some color model. The exact hue “complementary” to a given hue depends on the model in question, and perceptually uniform, additive, and subtractive color models, for example, have differing complements for any given color.-...
s are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange, red and green, purple and yellow. Complementary color schemes have a more energetic feel
The high contrast between the colors creates a vibrant look, especially when used at full saturation. Complementary colors can be tricky to use in large doses.
Split-analogous color scheme
A color scheme that includes a main color and the two colors one space away from it on each side of the color wheel. An example is red, blue, and violet.Split-complementary color scheme
A color scheme that includes a main color and the two colors on each side of its complementary (opposite) color on the color wheel.These are the colors that are one hue and two equally spaced from its complement. To avoid fatigue and maintain high contrast, this color scheme should be used when giving powerpoint presentations, or when using a computer for an extended period of time. Additionally, certain colors should not be mixed, like red and green. Colors that should be used are red/violet and yellow/green.
Triad color scheme
A color scheme in which 3 colors of equidistant distribution on the color wheel are used, e.g., red, blue, and yellow.Tetrads color scheme
Tetrads (or quadrads) are any four colors with a logical relationship on the color wheel, such as double complements.Neutral color scheme
A color scheme that includes only colors not found on the color wheel, called neutrals, such as beige, brown, gray, black and white.Accented neutral color scheme
A color scheme that includes neutral colors, like white, beige, brown, grey, light brown or black, and one or more small doses of other colors. eg.brown and beige with blue, gray and black with redWarm and cool color schemes
Warm color schemes do not include blue at all, and likewise, cool color schemes do not include red at all.For example, a color scheme that includes "warmer" colors may have orange, yellow, and red-orange in it. "Cooler" colors are green, violet, light blue, etc.
Examples of media where color schemes are used
- Graphic designGraphic designGraphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
- Product packaging
- Logo design
- AdvertisingAdvertisingAdvertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
- Graphical user interfaces
- Window managers such as GNOMEGNOMEGNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
, KDEKDEKDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
and BlackboxBlackboxIn Unix computing, Blackbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System.Blackbox has specific design goals, and some functionality is provided only through other applications. One example is the bbkeys hotkey application....
. - IrixIRIXIRIX is a computer operating system developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture workstations and servers. It was based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. IRIX was the first operating system to include the XFS file system.The last major version...
4dwm4Dwm4Dwm is a window manager normally used on Silicon Graphics workstations running IRIX. 4Dwm is derived from the older mwm window manager and uses the Motif widget toolkit on top of the X Window System found on most Unix systems....
's GUI uses more color schemes, whose information is stored in files named BaseColorPalette.
- Window managers such as GNOME
- The World Wide WebWorld Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
- Cascading Style Sheets allow easily-editable color schemes to be applied to HTMLHTMLHyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
webpages.
- Cascading Style Sheets allow easily-editable color schemes to be applied to HTML
- PublishingPublishingPublishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
- Modern magazines use a range of colors in text and imagery which tend not to conform to a specific set of colors throughout the magazine.
- Interior designInterior designInterior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...
- Video Games
- ArtArtArt is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
See also
- Light-on-dark color schemeLight-on-dark color schemeA light-on-dark color scheme is a color scheme that uses light-colored text on a dark background and is often discussed in terms of computer user interface design....
- Dark-on-light color scheme
- Color toolColor toolA color tool, color picker, or color chooser is a utility, usually found within graphics software or online, used to choose colors or create color schemes....
- Monochromatic colorMonochromatic colorMonochromatic colors are all the colors of a single hue. Monochromatic color schemes are derived from a single base hue, and extended using its shades, tones and tints Monochromatic colors are all the colors (tints, tones, and shades) of a single hue. Monochromatic color schemes are derived from a...
- Complementary colorComplementary colorComplementary colors are pairs of colors that are of “opposite” hue in some color model. The exact hue “complementary” to a given hue depends on the model in question, and perceptually uniform, additive, and subtractive color models, for example, have differing complements for any given color.-...