Today's lesson We're taking a look at color theory for designers why it's the most important thing you weren't taught in design school How Isaac Newton invented the color wheel and how you can use color for good or bad.
Let's go This has been probably the most excited I've been about doing an episode it's certainly been the most fun I've had when I've been doing some research It's one of the most suited for things online.
It's probably the most important thing. I was never taught at design school So today I'm going to show you some great resources I'm gonna put them all in the description so you can learn color theory how you can use in your own designs It can be used to manipulate people.
It can be used to persuade people. It can definitely be used for good or evil Hopefully you'll be using it for good. I'm going to show you some great links Let's start by kicking it off of this link. It's by visually and It's a really popular thing on Pinterest.
It's one of these infographics that I'll leave the link to in description so you can see and I'm just going to talk about the color wheel first where it came from and then we'll dive into what each color means and What it's best suited for in your designs
So let's start off with taking a look at a color wheel so color wheel simply just a circle of colors. There's 12 main colors on there you can see them breaking down here and They're all connected in a circle And this is the main way to you'll see on all those iron programs on how to choose colors.
So we'll verbalize about a second where it authentically emanates from So what I was intrigued to ascertain when I was doing research, this is Isaac Newton genuinely invented the color wheel so we all ken he did some great work and looking a color through a prism and he was the first one who discovered like that white lights could be split up into all these different colors and Infrareds off one side of the spectrum and then we ken ultra violet.
so we ken visible lights just part of a massive light spectrum from physics so all the visible light that we verbally express goes from red to violet and what Isaac Newton did was he just took the red end and the violet and Caved it round and made it into a circle like.
this So you can see on color wheels from red is always next to violet and all the others called Let's go around and that just was a really nice simple way of choosing colors at the time do a lot do a couple of different variations of different ways of like triangle method of how people choose colors But this was just the one that stuck it was made by the great man himself.
It's just something that stayed around for today you can see other people have had goes of their own color wheels, but it's simple because It's just I don't know it's just easy so let's just talk about primary colors for a second so there are three primary colors and these are traditionally known as red blue and Yellow and the whole idea is is that primary colors the colors that you come? that you mix to get every other color in the color wheel.
One thing I actually discovered which is interesting is that in printers so you have your head of CMYK, which is what we used in the print industry to make colors and that's actually cyan magenta yellow and black and I'll just show you that in a second.
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| CMYK(cyan magenta yellow and black) |
these colors and actually these colors are true Primary colors and these can be actually mixed to make red another color. So I Know you I know what you're saying.
Is that um But see it's CMYK is what we use in print and on digital screens We have RGB which is red green and blue and they make all the colors but the true Primary colors are CMYK.
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| RGB-Color |
That's what I've discovered. Let me know in the comments You're probably disagree with me and say oh, we've been taught in school that red blue and green are I'm not perfect.
But that's what I my understanding is so far of it Well, I I found that really interesting and I also found out that our eyes have receptors.
They have a green and a blue and a red receptor and those receptors MIT to makeover colors you mix them all together and you get all the other different colors.
so It's not just Primary colors are just another thing that we've discovered this finger actually in our eyes we have and then we have secondary and tertiary colors which Secondary colors are made up of make and primary colors and tertiary colors are made up of mixin It says it says here adjacent Colors and then this color wheel has you know in the middle we get closer.
We mix it more with black and on the outside. We have a hue which is a Pure color not mixed with black So that's just a quick overview of the color wheel now into the more interesting stuff.
Which is all the different colors in the wheel all the twelve colors and what they all mean psychologically which is a really interesting concept that we talked about in design that maybe is not talked about enough and we'll go for each one and we'll talk about how they use but you'll see is Subconsciously being used different different like banks might use blue and people say over it's common but also has some other effects.
But let's take a look at the different colors and see what they actually mean to our brain. So let's start let's start with yellow and interestingly Yellow is the color that actually stands out most to the human eye I have a yellow border and a lot of people have different colors, but apparently.
the yellow eye stimulates fingers both the green and the blue receptacles it's the only color that does this in our eye and it makes it stand off the most so you'll know by looking at that yellow really stands off people who are colorblind, but What it says here is it says yellows? Sparks energy creativity and then there's some like.
it's the happiest color psychologically as well I don't forget one can look at yellow and feel sad although in different cultures This is a this is a bit different like your no red means look in China.
whereas it says here a yellow actually signifies sadness in Greece and that Good Maybe that's one I'm normally a wrong along cultures because normally or certainly and Somewhere my Western culture you look at yellow and you think it's happy.
But it's just interesting to note that if you're designing a website in some of these different countries Thank you for designing a website in Greece now I probably wouldn't use yellow because I've just learned that a signifier sadness or jealousy in France and It actually talks about in France here that door of criminals with painted yellow in During the 12th century so it's just it's interested in now
whenever your self absence pencils in the US are painted yellow, which is a Which is interesting? So I'd say use yellow for a more bright website a little bit of creativity
I Use our mind to like stand out because people can see it but maybe just don't use it if you're in France or you're in Greece so I was reading through this earlier a nice preparing for this this presentation and Something about agreeing.
I found it really interesting. They said Green was the only solid color flag ever used by our country So I was having I was having a look for it before and actually you can see that was of the the flag of Libya which it's been change now, but I think of issues from 1977 to 2011 and it was just a solid green color, which is just interesting because you see all these different color different nations or different flags.
The US one's a great example is it's it's it's got strong red Blue white a lot of them use primary colors whereas this is just a solid green color.
I Just find it's for that was interesting and so let's talk about a Different things about green so green helps soothe and relax and you can see this because you see a lot of meditation apps use green you'll see a lot of them a lot of health people actually use green as well and Apparently it's really good for it's just a common color to look it's persuasive you're so used in lots of not its most common color in the natural world.
You know, it's produced by photosynthesis, so if you doing a natural nature website or a website for somewhere in the countryside Green I probably the color that you use most and a couple of interesting things is it says here the Green is used for night-vision goggles Because the human eye is the most sensitive to it and I can see the most different colors of a shade So that's really interesting.
probably if I was doing You know we talk about monochrome in previous lessons in duotone, which is websites, which it just made up of you know We've got whiter black but then we've only got one or two single colors on there and with these colors you've got to be really careful.
which one jeers because because the only college you have but greens interesting because you could you could do lots of different types of shades agree and that will give you a lot of depth in the website and interest.
so greens interest in for that It's on a side note host I was reading this and this a dream as a favor called with George Washington and this is my little little claim to fame so it might not be true,
So that's just my my American claim to fame So let's take a look at blue So you'll see blue everywhere when I wait for Barclays blue was the main color a lot of banks have blue a lot of them You know, it's talk about how it's calm and sedate um It's just it's a primary color as well.
And it's I think it's the most people's most favorite color on a lot of them Are on a lot of statistical? Surveys, so let's take a look so blue is the least gem gender-specific color have an equal appeal to both men and women that's interesting because you think the baby Selling the Western culture may be boys have blue baby girls have pink but it's interesting to know that.
That hasn't been tainted by that and it's equal to both men and women which is interesting Ours are the only birds that can see in the color blue.
So I Don't know. If a lot of people notice. I'm really interested. Let me just show you I Want to show you something which you'll find really interesting so I'm I'm interested in physics, and I've I wash it on Neil deGrasse Tyson and I'm one of the really interesting things is the visible light spectrum so His visible light.
you know The dad Newton discovered red to purple and you can actually see that this is just a tiny portion of all the light that's out There so, you know, you'll see these Hubble images with amazing space detail where they You'll see like these galaxies and different colors and they're actually made by Taking photographs in different wavelengths and combining them together.
so you'll know about x-ray x-ray machines how you can see through people but Like did you know that like radio waves are actually a light wave? That passed through here it's how it gets the people so quickly and you know from microwaves and you microwave cook it they're actually Created by the Sun they're actually liked infrared which is how we get warm from the Sun on a cold day.
That's greater them That's a that's a form of light so check out this invisible light spectrum, but it's always wonder what it'd be like if we had the supernatural ability to see in these different colors the world would appear completely differently like sometimes you look at these images where you know, You're see someone who's been in the sauna.
You'll see a damage by the UV and that's by taking a putting a filter any camera in a different light and taking a look at it But I just wanted to show you that for sex.
I find that absolutely fascinating So this color theory goes a lot broader than just the visible colors that we see, but some animals can see in different colors Which is why I think ours can like find my sim fields because they they see the infrared on the mics Which we can't see so we think they've got amazing this amazing clear vision But it's actually that they're they can just see in different types of light Bomb.
so use blue for things And says here it produced common chemicals in the body So yeah, you can see why banks use it it's trustworthy if you're a lawyer or something, I'd probably use blue Just you know, it gives that calm cool feeling about it.
And it's something that you should probably take a look up So let's go on to purple now Purple's really a dress that I was at I was reading about this and it was saying so we know pea pods associated especially in the UK was the royal family and Back, you know, it says here.
So I'm gonna talk about it for her but What I found was that purple? used to be the most expensive color to make which is why it's associated with Royals because nobody could actually.
Get it and I remembered the royal family actually banned the royal family from wearing any of a color bought purple but apparently it comes from Comes from the Middle East and it comes it gives to be made from snails so they crushed these type of mollusks up and That's where they'd get the purple dye from so you can see here.
See the way this this one has the purple in there like Such an interesting thing to discover but that's why it was so expensive because you could only find these snails in a certain type in the Middle East and then it had to be imported to the west and that's why purple now is associated with Rich and it says here that it's like you'll notice on a lot of notes.
So I was doing some research and the five hundred euro note is actually in em let's take a look at it now the Five hundred euro note is actually in purple. So you'll see a lot of countries which have really high notes so be designed in a currency or something that talks about wealth, maybe like an investor website think about using purple because that's historically.
what it's associated with and it says Purple's the first was the call of the first that I made by man. That's really interesting and then Yes, the color of Madison Square Garden seat some VIPs Yeah, so you can see anything.
That's expensive anything nuts Says here calms the nerves of mine. So it's similar to blue but it's just a more Rich type of blue I guess She's Jordan a separate comics. Those are paper covers sold better.
That's really interesting So beginning to cover like I know when I was working in Vogue magazine covers really important because they Showcased the magazine and seller and one of the things was the green covers never worked So you'll never see a Vogue magazine with green on the cover so it's interesting to know that purple was the color and you'll see superheroes or associated with purple and maybe that's Leslie just because it's all the best so it's interesting to check out purple.
Let's talk about pink next so Pink's You know, it's associated with girls. It's a youthful fun and You know our actually seen pink in In more recent years, you know, I've seen football boots and ping Cristiano Ronaldo wore some it really stands out.
It's Pink's used in prisons holding cells to reduce erratic behavior. So it seems to It seems to calm people down and it gives em energy action and confidence so Maybe if you do it like more of a fashion Websites.
I've seen a lot of yoga websites done in in pink Pastries tastes better when they come out the bugs pink. Yeah. Yeah, so you'll see a lot of sweets in pink so maybe we doing more of a fun website more of a Like a candy company awesome in Something like that What's the serious since the color pink is sort of a tranquilizer defect sports team? Sometimes use pink and paint the locker room of the opposing teams.
Yeah, so I can imagine now imagine you come into where I'm a huge Liverpool fan So my didn't come in to Anfield in you in your person rib, and suddenly all this pink.
Saranya Just you can't get angry Kenya You know what? They say Reds like people talk about rednecks, but that's like the passion color. Whereas pink it just calms you down so that's like probably really good idea for sport themes and you can see how like
I understand in color theory you can actually manipulate people's behavior or make them Do something so I could imagine using it in prisons or places where people need to calm down painted that color I'd say let's move on to bread.
So we all know red is a Red red the color of passion but that's actually because red Like this is interesting that actually has a lot of energy like physically the light spectrum so in physics II
From red to blue each color has a it's like a wavelength So you'll see a wave and actually the color of the wavelength of red is a is different than the wavelength of blue which is why the which is wider on opposite ends and red is actually it's a It's got the longest wavelength so It's addressed them because even though people says it energizes.
It's actually got the least energy out of all the particles Which you wouldn't believe a first but that's just something interesting to note and then once you get past bread you get into the infrared spectrum.
which is used a lot for night vision and You know, there are lots of heaters nowadays We've got them in our house which just produce infrared light which is invisible but actually warms your skin and it's how the Sun warms So maybe that's why it's associated with Worman.
but it says red draws attention and keeps the user It keeps the focus so red you'll see on websites used a lot and normally for errors and danger It just seems to be It makes people act on a website.
So we say an encouraging action and confidence So it draws people to attention, you know, we see it used in Just kind of anywhere where People's attention needs to be drawn So red is the first color you lose decisive Twilight.
So you lose red and Bees can't see in the color red so them pollinate red flowers another interesting fact about red over then using it for like high energy things is The reason the sunset is red is beginning of particles in the sky and those particles are just the right size to scatter blue light Which is why the sky is blue.
But at night it has the Sun has to travel for more atmosphere to get to us because it's on an angle There's more atmosphere and then the red particles are allowed to come through which is why we see a red sunset But on Mars the sky is red during the day because of the particle size But at night time next time a blue sunset because of where the the Sun then goes down has the opposite effect on Earth.
really interested as to what orange so orange is my favorite color. I Used to do by CV and orange not many people use it my favorite magazine color ever Was it orange don't want to show you this polish show you this before a DIF website so wired Web is dead at issue if you ever get a chance to pick it up So I used to wear my de musica all free magazines from the US and this was an American version and the cold doesn't maybe they were just nurse but this episode was and My favorite just stood out.
It was like a fluorescent orange and it was a really beautiful color to use but apparently You know orange is another Pound it's not an energetic color so apparently it's the most controversial one of us and it has the most Say this is love or hate. So guys it's kind of like Marmite but I Haven't really seen orangey used for many many things.
Yeah, this is right orange is used for I've seen safety news, like people wear orange hats when they need to be visible So maybe if you design the website for like a warehouse or our safety? Orange seems to be used One Orange means hi in the color-coded fret system Yeah, so not much not much going on up our and you don't really see orange cars You don't really see many things about orange.
I Love it, but maybe we won't use it for my stuff again considering a lot of people don't like it It's an interesting color to use orange And then we have white so white as you as, you know talks about Isaac Newton He split the white up into all the different colors wife is actually combinations all colors White isn't the most important color your uses the design that a lot of people don't appreciate it white space I like to let my designs breathe.
I like full screen menus which just have black text in them You see a lot of the thumbnails for my images is just white background with text I probably wouldn't put an image in there, but I found that for looking at statistics that the images perform better But personally I just like really crisp white with text. You're seeing some my early videos.
That's that's all I had and just you know allowing that white space having the confidence to use our white space and not having to fill up every single pixel on your design is really important and Your CEOs talk about purity cleanliness.
I saw as a designer It's really important and also it's used in medical and law so you see doctors wearing white coats Maybe if you designed like a medical website Allow maybe use a few more Gray's bring it in allow that whitespace to settle in and maybe use it more in the images as well as As well as in the thing so this is addressed and so says according to him Court Pantone white is the best-selling color for American t-shirts.
Yeah I think it's just cuz it's neutral and people like it and you know, you'll go home when your bike paints It says more shades of white or available Commission entertaining for color So, you know when you're buying paint, you'll see all these different colors of white to paint your walls Magnolia or all these other ones so even though white is pure.
there's certainly a lot of shades before use and then we just talk about gray and black so gray is actually Probably the most popular color in the UK at the moment. We went to buy carpets recently and this was gray everywhere.
what to say what gray so gray is the color of intellect knowledge and wisdom Yeah, you can imagine if people have gray hair is the girl.
That's probably where that comes from so maybe if you were doing a website about Other than other know about a company that had like a lot of experience and wisdom. You could use grey.
It's The human eye can distinguish were 500 shades are growing so that's interesting Yeah, so 50 shades of grey and I fire me and 500 shades of grey you could use different shades of it on your website It's so clear. I don't use that much.
I'm not really a fan of grey I like vibrant colors you'll see buy a lot of shit somewhere another use that much grey, but if your Interim maybe you designed a website for a person who's formal or is a representative in government something like that so we're not, you know do call over experience use grey and Then and then black so black is the color over than white So blacks, you know, it could be like a pessimistic color.
It could be like a You know it could It could be used for all sorts of things So we've seen the dark mode UI come in in the last couple in the last couple of months So black is sailing the ink color on web design.
We've got black backgrounds white text It's actually easier on your eyes then having a white background and white text It's an OLED screen when they display blind and display black the colors the the displays actually splits off So it's interesting the safe battery It's interesting. All the new devices are gonna have OLED screens So the watches that's how you get such a long life shelf life on them You only display a few pixels and your battery lasts for ages.
I can see this being on phones and loads of different Devices going forward so dark mode is a UI style it's probably the one that's followed flat UI, although you can have flat UI sitting in it, but it's one that's.
Followed for not just style but also substance, you know, it's it saves your eyes it saves battery Developers use it because we're on computers for 11 hours a day. It's a it's one of those things that you should probably Use and unusual for colors to bring into it to have a really stylish website guys. I hope you enjoyed that lesson what your favorite color is. on there until next time keep designing
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