Color is perhaps one of the most essential elements of any design, being able to establish a mood, differentiate planes, and perhaps even highlight or camouflage certain datapoints (Lupton & Phillips, p81). To create the entire spectrum of color, many systems are used to measure the degree of each color value within a hue. For LEDs and electronics, the most common systems for color are RGB, which modifies the brightness of red, green, and blue components in a pixel, as well as HSL, which determines the hue, saturation, and lightness of the color (Lupton & Phillips, p86; w3schools, web). For printing, because light is absorbed instead of emitted, a CYMK color scheme is used, mixing cyan, magenta, and yellow pigments to create the color spectrum, with a black pigment to fill in the gaps (Lupton & Phillips, p86). An important tool for understanding this spectrum is the color wheel, which can depict hues as a function of the values along its circumference and their respective shades and tints as they get closer and further from the center of the circle respectively (Lupton & Phillips, p85). Using the color wheel, the entire spectrum can be divided into groups and harmonies that exhibit important compositional and relational data respectively.
Of the color groups, the color wheel can be split into three groupings of hues – those being the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Primary colors – red, yellow, and blue – are thought of as ‘pure’ and cannot be created using other colors, coming off as bold and attention-grabbing to the eye (Lupton & Phillips, p83). In contrast, secondary colors – green, purple, orange – tend to come off as more casual and cohesive and can be made by mixing only two primary colors (Lupton & Phillips, p83). Whereas primary colors by themselves tend to contrast one another and are often used to create opposition in graphics, secondary color can add depth and temperature to a graphic without disrupting its aesthetic. Tertiary colors, -- comprising the remaining hues on the color wheel – are thus made by mixing a primary color with a secondary one, creating good transitional colors and near-colors but are perhaps a bit more muted than the last (Lupton & Phillips, p83). Tertiary colors are essential for tying a piece together, which would otherwise have striking but distinct hues that do not mix.
Whereas color groups express certain properties of their hues, color harmonies illustrate the interplay between colors and which hues go well together. Complementary colors are pairs of hues that are opposite or near opposites on the color wheel, such as orange/blue, or red/green/greenish-blue/greenish-yellow (Lupton & Phillips, p83). Complementing colors tend to be contrasting, partitioning hues into warm and cool colors that together balance into a striking piece. On the other hand, analogous colors consist of neighboring hues on the color wheel, and can create a pleasant and natural gradient across the piece (Lupton & Phillips, p83). Popularly split into gradients such as purple-to-blue, yellow-to-green, and red-to-orange, analogous colors can work together to create a cohesive tone and direction across a piece.