Color modes meanings and schemes

Modes, Meanings

& Schemes of Colors

Presentation by Ravi Bhadauria

ADMEC Multimedia Institute | www.admecindia.co.in

Color Modes, Meanings

& Color Schemes Know your colors

to make your design beautiful.

A Workshop by Ravi Bhadauria at ADMEC Multimedia Institute

Color Modes & Color Schemes A Presentation by: Ravi Bhadauria

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ADMEC MULTIMEDIA INSTITUTE Leader in Animation & Digital Media Education ISO 9001 : 2008 CERTIFIED www.admecindia.co.in | www.graphic-design-institute.com Phones: +91-9811-8181-22, +91-9911-7823-50

Preface & Acknowledgment Dear Reader, ADMEC Multimedia Institute is a growing institute which provides industry oriented training to the world at large. Being a multimedia institute we offer training for designing content for the advertising and publishing on various medias also.

This presentation is the study material of our weekly workshops beining conducted by our senior mentors on Color Modes & Color Schemes. All the admecians and non-admecians can access this presentation to improve their knowledge of colors.

We express thanks to many books and websites, specially Google for making it one of the best presentations of all the time.

Thanks Ravi Bhadauria, Instructor (Web and Visual Designing) Director ADMEC Multimedia Institute http://www.admecindia.co.in

What are you going to learn today? ●

Importance of color in a design ?

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Introduction to Color Wheel

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Color Modes (Color vs Computer) ●

Types of Color Modes

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How they are useful ?

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Meaning of Colors ?

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Color Schemes (Color vs Design)

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Types of Color Schemes

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Use of Color Schemes

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What we will be discussing today?

Color is one of the most important of elements of any design as it can make your break your design if you are not using it wisely. So, we have devided color topic in 2 parts: 1. Color Modes, Meanings, and Schemes (Today's Topic) 2. How to Use Colors in a Design (Next Week Topic)

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Part I

Importance of Color Color is an element of visual language that people process and notice before they are consciously aware of it. So, this is the reason why colors are important to discuss. www.admecindia.co.in

Importance of Color in a design

Because color is a powerful element of visual communication, we need to think through how and why we are using it.

I have given 10 best possible examples of the use of colors in various situations in our life to make this point very clear.

Uses of Colors in a design 1. Use color to speed visual search

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Uses of Colors in a design 2. Use color to improve object recognition

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Uses of Colors in a design 3. Use color to enhance meaning

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Uses of Colors in a design 4. Use color to convey structure

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Uses of Colors in a design 5. Use color to establish identity

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Uses of Colors in a design 6. Use color for symbolism

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Uses of Colors in a design 7. Use color to improve usability

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Uses of Colors in a design 8. Use color to communicate mood

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Uses of Colors in a design 9. Use color to show associations

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Uses of Colors in a design 10. Use color to express metaphors

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Synopsis Color fires both cultural and psychological affiliations that are symbolic of ideas, thoughts and feelings. So as per the context one color can have positive or negative connotations for different- 2 frameworks and societies.

For example, although white is often associated with pleasure and celebration in Western cultures, in another context it can be associated with despair and frustration in other culture.

So, what you need to learn to understand colors very well ?

Today every designer uses computer to create accurate designs so we must know how computer considers colors first. I am sure that knowledge will not help you directly in understanding the use of colors for your design to make them engaging and intuitive but that can't be ignored and then we will discuss about the color meanings and color schemes in this presentation.

Part II

Color Modes

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A color mode determines the color model used to display and print images. Computer application such as Photoshop uses its color modes on established models for describing and reproducing colors.

Common models include HSB (Hue, Saturation, Brightness), RGB (Red, Green, Blue), CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black), and CIE Lab. In addition to determine the number of colors that can be displayed in an image, color modes affect the number of channels and the file size of an image.

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Color Modes 1. RGB 2. CMYK 3. Grayscale 4. Lab 5. Indexed 6. Duotone 7. Bitmap 8. Multichannel

RGB Color Mode The RGB color model is an additive color model in which red, green, and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additive primary colors, red, green, and blue.

RGB Color Mode cond.. 2 Intensity value for each pixels ranging from 0 – 255 levels.

RGB images use three colors or channels to produce up to 16.7 million colors on screen.

The 3 channels translate to (8x3) 24 bits of color information per pixel. It is a primary color mode and also known as additive color mode as it reproduce white color when we add all the 3 components at their maximum intensity.

CMYK Color Mode The CMYK color model (process color, four color, secondary color) is a subtractive color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. CMYK refers to the four inks used in some color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black).

Complimentary Color Modes RGB and CMYK color modes are complimentary color modes as they can reproduce each other in computer.

Note: Primary and secondary colors according to manual definitions are completely different: Primary: Red, Yellow, Blue Secondary: Orange, Green, Purple

Manual Primary and Secondary Colors Primary: Red, Yellow, Blue Secondary: Orange, Green, Purple

La*b* Color Mode

Bitmap Color Mode This mode uses one of two color values (black or white) to represent the pixels in an images. Images in Bitmap mode are called bitmapped 1-bit images because they have a bit depth of 1.

Grayscale Color Mode

Duotone Color Mode This mode creates duotone (two-color), tritone (three-color), and quadtone (four-color) grayscale images using two to four custom inks.

See the example on next slide.

Duotone Color Mode Example

Indexed Color Mode

Multichannel Color Mode

Part III

Color Meanings You can not use colors perfectly in any design until you are not aware of their meanings and symbolism that they represent. Colors can swap thinking and can make psychological and physiological changes in someone's mind.

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Colors are the powerful source of symbolism and meanings.

Red is universally followed as powerful and Stop sign in traffic while green for progress and Go signal in traffic.

I have conducted the presentation on this subject hundreds of times in many institutions and colleges including in my own institute i.e. ADMEC Multimedia Institute and every time I learned new things about colors from my experiences.

Lets explore some useful things about colors.

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Color meanings There are 3 type of colors warm, cool, and neutral in the same way there are 3 types of moods (design personality) warm, cool, and neutral.

Warm

Cool

Neutral

I am sure above paragraph has given you some good hints about the relation between the colors and design personality.

Color meanings contd...

Lets explore some useful traits of all these three color categories in detail on next slide.

Hot traits: (reference blood and fire), Anger, emotions, conflict, optimism, violence, excitement, action, energy, war, movement, dynamism, discussion, aggression, romantic, creative, love, passion etc.

Cool traits: (reference nature) Peace, comfort, nurture, progress, prosperity, calm, investment, safety, wisdom, cold, impersonal, antiseptic etc.

Color meanings contd...

Neutral traits: To some extent blacks, browns, tans, golds, and beige are considered warm. While white, ivory, silver, and gray are somewhat cooler colors.

Simplicity, purity, peace, fat less, experienced, dangerous, mysterious, sophisticated, formal, rich, glamorous, innocent, softness, elegance, friendliness, conservative, relaxing etc.

Red

Use of Red

Green

Use of Green

Blue

Purple

Use of Purple

Use of Purple

Orange

Use of Orange

Use of Orange

Use of Orange

Use of Orange

Use of Orange

White

Use of White

Yellow

Use of Yellow

Use of Yellow

Black

Use of Black

Use of Black

Use of Black

Use of Black

Use of Black

Part IV

Color Schemes Color schemes are must to know to use colors in combinations for better contrast and powerful designing.

There are 6 color schemes and after knowing them you will be able to create harmonious designs quickly.

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How to make a color scheme ?

Color has some symbolism and traits like every brand available to sell and service something. Meaning every brand must have a primary color and then we should search for a color that can accompany it or secondary color and that is the color scheme.

But which secondary color will work well with the primary color is a seriously big dilemma.

Lets overcome this dilemma on next slide.

Color Wheel

Types of Color – analog

Types of Color – analog

yellow + orange = yellow-orange red + orange = red-orange red + purple (violet) = red-purple (red-violet) blue + purple (violet) = blue-purple (blue-violet) blue + green = blue-green yellow + green = yellow-green

Types of Color – digital

Primary ● Red ● Green ● Blue

Secondary ● Cyan ● Magenta ● Yellow

Tertiary ● White ● Black

Color schemes contd...

1. Monochromatic Relationship: Colors that are shade or tint variations of the same hue.

It uses the variations in lightness and saturation of single color. This scheme looks clean and elegant.

It produce a very soothing effect.

Monochromatic Example

Monochromatic Example

Color schemes contd...

2. Complementary Relationship: Those colors across from each other on a color wheel.

This color scheme looks best when you place a warm color against cool color. This is an intrinsically high contrast color scheme and good for youths.

Complimentary Example

Complimentary Example

Complimentary Example

Color schemes contd...

3. Split-Complementary Relationship: One hue plus two others equally spaced from its complement. So it is a new variant of complimentary color scheme.

This provides high contrast without the strong tension of complimentary color scheme.

Split-complimentary examples

Split-complimentary examples

Color schemes contd...

4. Double-Complementary or Tetra-ad Relationship: Two complementary color sets; the distance between selected complementary pairs will effect the overall contrast of the final composition.

This scheme is hard to harmonize; if all four hues are used in equal amounts, the scheme may look unbalanced, so you may choose a color to be dominant or subdue the colors.

Tetra-ad scheme examples

Color schemes contd...

5. Triad Relationship: Three hues equally positioned on a color wheel.

This scheme is very popular among artists because it offers strong visual contrast while retaining harmony and color richness. It is not as contrast rich as complimentary scheme, but it looks more balanced and harmonious than that.

Triad scheme examples

Triad scheme examples

Triad scheme examples

Color schemes contd...

6. Analogous Relationship: This color scheme uses the color located adjacent to each other on a color wheel. One color is used as a dominant color and others are used to enrich the scheme. It is very similar to monochromatic but with more vibrant colors and nuances.

Analogous scheme examples

Analogous scheme examples

Projects on Color Modes and Schemes Theory: ● Why colors are important for a design? Explain with appropriate examples. ● What are all the color modes in computer please explain with their respective characteristics and uses? ● Write down all the color schemes with the related image.

Don't forget to add their uses and examples. ● How Complimentary is different from Triadic Color Scheme? Please explain with example. ● Write down the meanings or indications of at least 20 colors with the most appropriate picture examples.

For reviews and comments please email me at: info@admecindia.co.in

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ADMEC MULTIMEDIA Helpline 1: +91 9811-8181-22 Helpline 2: +91 9911-7823-50 URL: http://www.admecindia.co.in Want to read more on visual designing http://www.graphic-design-institute.com