cinnamon & sugar

Books about color

cinnamonandsugar — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 02:08:01 +0000

For Adam

The new big book of color in Design
Editor David E.Carter, Collins Design, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2006
ISBN-10 0-06-113767-7 $$
This second edition of its kind shows 300+ examples of graphic design grouped into 26 categories according to their color schemes. The categories are e.g. Classic, Natural, Retro or Hip. Color schemes are shown with CMYK and RGB values. A good reference on how color schemes will look like when applied, not only for print media.

Tasteful Color Combinations
Naomi Kuno and FORMS inc./Color Intelligence Institute, Page One Publishing Pte., Singapore, 2005
ISBN: 981-245-228-1 $
Naomi Kuno advocates color schemes which speak to all senses not just the eye. 455 themed, named and described color schemes with CMYK and RGB values are listed. Most of the color schemes look better onscreen than in the printed version, sometimes a distinct Japanese color sense is visible.

Colorist. A Practical Handbook for Personal and Professional Use
Shigenobu Kobayashi, Kodansha International Ltd., Tokyo, 1998
ISBN 4-7700-2323-5 $
Personal color taste exercises, color and image mappings and explanations of color schemes and their applications aim to teach anyone to become a colorist. A must read book. However a bit technocratic and not so practical after all.

Digital Colour for the Internet and other Media
Studio 7.5, Ava Publishing SA, Switzerland,2003
ISBN 2-88479-026-8 $$
A very rich collection of information about digital color, including ergonomics, meaning, dynamics, order, grammar of color and many website examples of which some might still be around. I am not sure if this book is still in print though. It is worth hunting for.

Colour. The Digital Photography Expert
Michael Freeman, ILEX, United Kingdom, 2005
ISBN 1-904705-58-8 $
The eye is fit to see the world, the photographers view on color is close to something like an original viewpoint. Hence I like this book for its chapter Real Word, Real Color and the use of color inspired by real world impressions.

Color Communication in Architectural Space
Meerwein, Rodeck, Mahnke, Birkhaeuser 1^st English version, Germany, 2007
ISBN-10: 3-7643-7596-5 $$$
First published in German: Farbe – Kommunication im Raum, 1998, ISBN 3-7643-7595-7
This is a scholarly and beautiful book. Although it is meant for Architects the thoughts, concerns and processes apply to some extend to all color applications.

A colorful picnic

cinnamonandsugar — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:26:04 +0000

New ways to teach color and train color sense

Today the 1^st years students of National University Singapore’s Industrial Design course where confronted with a different kind of color exercise. A story about a picnic in a cubical world is the start to an investigation of the capability of colors to categorize and characterize objects. Final results are expected in 3 weeks time.

A two dimensional color exercise: Imagine you visited a cubical world, there where only cubes. Everything alive or dead was cubes! After your first confusion you became good friends with the cubers. One day you went out with them to a splendid park. 6 of you had a picnic, eating 3 different dishes and drinking a delicious cuberian drink. Back home your friends thought your story was quiet unbelievable. What luck that you had made a photograph that day.

Make three quick sketches of the scene; discuss your ideas with your tutors. Make one final A4 size image. Exhibit your ‘photo’.

Color characteristics

cinnamonandsugar — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 04:19:01 +0000

How colors relate to each other

Our eyes are perfected to see color in context. The picture below shows a stone head decorated with a flower in a Balinese garden. In a scene like this, colors are described relative to each other. The three basic characteristics to describe colors as we see them are lightness, color and saturation. The illustration at the right shows natural variations of the color of the stone head.

Left : Image by Arjen Benders
Center : Simplified image filled with average color from the regions
Right : The stone heads color with natural variations

Lightness
Possibly the most important difference between colors, is their lightness. A scene rendered only using lightness differences is still very understandable. However the emotive message changes in a black and white picture. Some information is lost. The difference you see between the green leaves and the stone head in the original is almost invisible in the black and white version. The right illustration shows lightness variations of the color of the stone head, such variations are called tints and shades.

Left : Black and White image, showing only the lightness of each color
Center : Simplified image filled with average grey from the regions
Right : The stone heads color with lightness variations

Color
Color is how every day language refers to what is also known as ‘hue’. Hue defines how red, green, blue or yellow a color is. If we could only see lightness and color as hues at their maximum levels the Balinese garden would look strangely surreal. Although our world is full of color, it is rarely highly saturated colors. The right illustration shows color variations of the color of the stone head, all three stripes have equal saturation and lightness levels.

Left : Image with maximum visibility of the accurate hues
Center : Simplified image filled with average color from the regions
Right : The stone heads color with hue variations

Saturation
Describes how much of a specific hue is in a color. The way it is used here is officially called chroma or chromaticness. A mono colored world often looks quiet composed, especially when lightness variation is included. Notice how sensitive your eye is to the green in all variat

Left : Image rendered using only a single hues in all saturations and lightness levels
Center : Simplified image filled with average color from the regions
Right : The stone heads color with chroma variations

If you like to read the scientific definitions of all color terms visit http://tigger.uic.edu/~hilbert/Glossary.html written by Alex Byren and David Hilbert

Like a cherry on vanilla ice

cinnamonandsugar — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 04:16:58 +0000

A step by step guide to make a color scheme with an accent.

Neutrals make great backgrounds for information and images. If you have a nice set of neutrals any color accent will look good with it, a bit like vanilla ice cream with a cherry, a pistachio or a piece of chocolate – they are all delicious. What you can make could look like this:

Process overview:
1. pick a neutral light color to start with
2. create close variations of that color
3. add an accent color
4. add a shadow color for text

Process Details:
1. Pick a light neutral color to start with.
That sounds easier than it is. Neutrals are difficult to judge and the differences between them are often only visible when you put them next to each other. Also here you are interested in almost whites and almost perfect grey colors. To make your life easier pick a neutral color from an image. Google helps with a ton of ice cream photos – avoid the brightly colored ice creams though. Alternatively the sandy beach and the tide image below provide a wide range of warm and cold neutrals.

Photos by Arjen Benders 2005

2. Create close variations of your light neutral color.

There are several possibilities to create a group of very close variations. Select colors which differ in color, saturation and lightness. You can pick several colors from the same area of an image or use a color picker to alter color values. Photoshop’s ‘variations’ offer a range of automated variations. Alternatively use genopal online www.genopal.com which gives you control over the suggested variations.

3. Add an accent color.

This bit actually is easier than it sounds, almost any color will do. Choose a color with a medium saturation level. If you need some inspiration, pick one of the neutrals and see what happens when the saturation value is increased.

4. Add a shadow color.

The shadow color becomes your ‘black’. The shadow is mainly used as a text color. Pick any of your previous colors, neutral or accent and alter the L slider, so that you get a very rich dark color which makes everything else look good.

Color theory fails to explain what people like

cinnamonandsugar — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 02:41:07 +0000

The majority of ‘kuler’s’ most popular color schemes are not harmonious

A look at the 100 most popular color schemes on Adobes ‘kuler’ color tool and color community site reveals that a large majority of color schemes fall outside the rules of color theory. That makes us wonder if peoples practice is ugly and unharmonious, or there is a flaw in the theory.

Some color schemes published at http://kuler.adobe.com/#

This result is even more surprising as ‘kuler’ has the rules readily available as built in schemes and also allows improvement of shades or hues. But even with the liberty of interpretation, only 40 color schemes resembled the rules to some extent. If the rules were to be taken as Johannes Itten intended them, he would have found only 8 color schemes to match his theory. To learn more about color theory visit www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-wheel-types.html

More than half of all color schemes fall into the category ‘custom’ and are designed with total freedom. If you add compound schemes, interesting colors from multiple hues, and shades which are described as subtle variations of the base color’s hue, one arrives at a stunning two third of the most popular schemes ignoring what is thought to be the accepted rule in designing with color.

From the 6 rules of color harmony only two enjoy some appreciation: analogue color schemes, characterized by the adjacent hue of the colors and complementary schemes, combining colors from opposite sites of the color wheel. The order of the original color wheel is based on the three primaries; red, blue and yellow. This leads to, for example, the complementary pair of magenta and yellow. At ‘kuler’ magenta opposes a green, as it would happen if the wheel would be build up by two opposing axis red-green and blue-yellow. This is called the opponent theory and led to color spaces, which are by most physiologist believed to accurately describe the color order as perceived by humans.

Suspiciously the creative community seams to ignore not only knowledge created and accepted in other disciplines but also manages to ignore their own practice. Once the reality that color theory fails to explain color preferences gets accepted, one can again start to wonder: what is the secret of a great color sense?

Hello world!

cinnamonandsugar — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:16:14 +0000

This is about to become a place for color. Color basics, how to color things and make color schemes, some thoughts about color and some color research will be posted here. This way I will learn if my ways with color have some value to you and the world. Hello world!