Color scheme

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Celebration with fireworks over Miami, Florida, USA on American Independence Day. Bank of America Tower is also lit with the red, white and blue color scheme.
Celebration with fireworks over Miami, Florida, USA on American Independence Day. Bank of America Tower is also lit with the red, white and blue color scheme.

In color theory, a color scheme is the choice of colors used in design 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 color scheme in web design.

Color schemes are used to create style and appeal. Colors that create an aesthetic 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 when concerning color patterns and designs used for identification of friend or foe, identification of specific military units, or as camouflage.

A color scheme in marketing is referred to as a trade dress and can be sometimes be copyrighted, as is the pink color of Owens-Corning fiberglass.[1]

Contents

[edit] On the color wheel

Color schemes are often described in terms of logical combinations of colors on a color wheel. Various different types of schemes are used.[2][3][4]

[edit] Monochromatic color scheme

A monochromatic scheme consists of different values (tints and shades) of one single color. These color schemes are easy to get right and can be very effective, soothing and authoritative[5]. They do, however, lack the diversity of hues found in other color schemes and are less vibrant. A special case is a two-color black-and-white scheme.

[edit] Analogous color scheme

Also called harmonious colors, are colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. Some examples are green, light green, and yellow or red, orange and yellow.

[edit] Complementary color scheme

Complementary colors are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange, red and green, purple and hahhother.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Tetradic color scheme

Tetrads (or quadrads[4]) are any four colors with a logical relationship on the color wheel, such as double complements.

[edit] Examples of media where color schemes are used

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Gordon V. Smith and Russell L. Parr (2005). Intellectual Property: Valuation, Exploitation, and Infringement Damages. John Wiley and Sons. 
  2. ^ Stephen Quiller (2002). Color Choices. Watson–Guptill. ISBN 0823006972. 
  3. ^ Jackie Shaw (1994). The Big Book of Decorative Painting: How to paint if you don't know how – and how to improve if you do. Watson–Guptill. ISBN 0823002659. 
  4. ^ a b Edith Anderson Feisner (2006). Colour: How to Use Colour in Art and Design. Laurence King Publishing. ISBN 1856694410. 
  5. ^ Christopher Simmons (2006). Color Harmony: Logos: More Than 1,000 Color Ways for Logos that Work. Rockport Publishers. ISBN 1592532446. 

[edit] External links

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