This document provides instructions for a colour research assignment. It asks the student to answer questions about suggested colour schemes for various clients and industries. It also defines colour terms and concepts like hue, value, saturation, tint, tone, shade, gamut, gradient, and different types of colour contrast. The student is asked to demonstrate their understanding by providing colour swatches and definitions.

1. Mike 17/03/2012
LEARNING ACTIVITY 04 Colour Research
This research assignment will develop your understanding of colour use and allow you
to explore online resources that will help you in your study / work.
Save it somewhere safe, and then submit it for feedback via the Assessment Tool.
Answer these short questions to demonstrate your understanding of colour. Use MS
Word. Name, date and save into your account, then submit via the Assessment Tool
for feedback.
1. Colour Scheme
Your client whose Brisbane-based business is supplying OH&S resources to Civil
& Mechanical engineering fields needs a new business identity/ brand. What
could you suggest would be the colour scheme for this client for their logo and
corporate identity package?
Fill the swatches below with your choices (see screenshot below on how to do
this in MS Word). Note: you don’t need to use all the swatches.
Explain why you chose these colours.
I would suggest a Complement colour schemes making it contrast. The colour and its
complement would convey energy, vigor and excitement which would be ideal for
Occupational Health and Safety resources.
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2. 2. Colour Scheme
Your client whose business is producing rugged outdoor footwear for the
domestic (Australian) market has developed a new range for teenage girls.
What could you suggest would be the colour scheme for this new brand? Fill the
swatches below with your choices. Explain why you chose these colours.
I would suggest an Analogous colour scheme which share strong undertones which
create pleasing low contrast harmony. The Analogous palettes are rich and easy to
work with.
3. Colour Scheme
A client who represents an Australian Govt. agency to support drug
rehabilitation services needs a new corporate identity for them. What could you
suggest would be the colour scheme for this agency? Fill the swatches below
with your choices.
Explain why you chose these colours.
A room with lots of dark colours and little contrast might also promote isolation and/or
depression. Of course fluorescent tie-die isn’t the way to go either, but white, off-
white, sky blue, and other soft colours provide a better atmosphere for a healthy
mind. Lighting is also important. Closed shades and low light levels sometimes make
drug rehabilitation more difficult.
http://www.health-guide-online.com/drug-rehab.html
I would suggest a Secondary colour scheme as it would have more pleasing depth and
dimension that are hard to get in other ways.
4. List 3 free-to-use online software tools to help you develop colour
schemes. List their URLs and describe the one you like best and why you like it.
http://www.smashingapps.com/2009/12/17/50-best-free-tools-to-create-perfect-
color-combinations.html
Color Scheme Designer
Color Scheme Designer is a brand new interface, as well as the engine, all rewritten
from the scratch. Rapidly increased precision and colour space conversions, better
preview, enhanced scheme creation system; unique scheme IDs and permanent URL
of the scheme.
http://colorschemedesigner.com/
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3. Hex Color Scheme Generator
This is a great tool to use if you want to develop a matching colour scheme for your
site. Say you want your nav colour to be #000066 (navy blue) and you want to know
what colours would go best with it, this tool will help you.
http://www.2createawebsite.com/build/hex-color-scheme-generator.html
Check My Color
It is a tool for checking foreground and background colour combinations of all DOM
elements and determining if they provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone
having colour deficits.
http://www.checkmycolours.com/
I liked the Check My Colour online software tool as it let me check my URL
http://resumejourney.blogspot.com/ providing these interesting results:
Testing done on 826 elements
Luminosity Contrast Ratio: 592 failures
Brightness difference: 691 failures
Colour difference: 696 failures
5. Using the BAM (Before & after Magazine) colour wheel.
• Primary colours. Use the swatches below to represent Primary colours:
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4. • Secondary colours. Use the swatches below to represent Secondary colours:
• Tertiary colours. Use the swatches below to represent Tertiary colours:
• Warm colours. Fill the 3 swatches below with examples.
• Cool colours.
6. Colour Emotions / Colour Associations
According to “Western” perception of colours, describe the emotion associated
with the following colours and provide an example of its use in contemporary
culture.
Colour emotion example
Energy, war, danger,
strength, power,
Red Valentine heart
determination as well as
passion, desire, and love.
Trust, loyalty, wisdom,
Blue
confidence, intelligence, Police Officer
faith, truth, and heaven.
Light, goodness,
White Dove
innocence, purity, and
Religion
virginity.
Black Power, elegance, formality,
Funeral
death, evil, and mystery.
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5. Yellow Joy, happiness, intellect,
Sunshine
and energy.
Dark Green Ambition, greed, and
Money
jealousy.
Lime-green Growth, harmony,
Nature
freshness, and fertility.
Boldness, dignity, self-
Chrome control, wisdom,
Harleys and Choppers.
responsibility, organisation
and insight.
Enthusiasm, fascination,
happiness, creativity,
Orange Oxygen, autumn and
determination, attraction,
harvest.
success, encouragement,
and stimulation.
Romance, love, and
Pink friendship. It denotes
Forgive and nurture.
feminine qualities and
passiveness.
Conservative, security,
maturity, reliability, cool,
Grey composed, intelligence,
Loneliness
staid, modesty, dignity,
solid, practical, old age,
Sadness and boring.
Purple Power, nobility, luxury, and
Royalty
ambition.
Brown Stability and denotes
Earth
masculine qualities.
Note:
To do the following activity you’ll need to determine the RGB value for a colour using
MS Word. You can find this out by using the Shape Fill palette / more fill colours/
Custom (see below):
7. Demonstrate your understanding of the following colour terms:
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6. • Hue. Show an example of “hue” in the swatch below and name it. Indicate its
RGB value.
Purple can balance the mind and transform obsessions and fears.
RGB
Red=128 Green=55 Blue=183
• Lightness. Make the hue you chose lighter and represent it in this swatch.
Indicate its RGB value. Hint: Use the vertical slider in the colours dialog box to
“lighten” a hue.
RGB
Red=220 Green=197 Blue=237
• Saturation. Pick a new hue and in the swatches below represent it at 3 levels of
saturation:
Hint: In MS Word, use HSL instead of RGB Colour model to easily change the
saturation value, see below left:
• Define Tint
1. a shade of a colour, especially a pale or delicate variation.
2. A gradation of a colour made by adding white to it to lessen its saturation.
3. A slight coloration; a tinged
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tint
• Define Shade
A shade is a hue or colour with black (or any other dark colour) mixed into it. This
creates a darker version or a darker tone of it. You can have more than one shade of
a colour, depending on how much has been mixed into it
http://taspolytechnic.blogspot.com.au/search?q=colours&search=Search.
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7. The opposite of a shade is a tint.
• Define Tone
In art, tone refers to the degree of lightness or darkness of an area. Tone varies from
the bright white of a light source through shades of grey to the deepest black
shadows. How we perceive the tone of an object depends on its actual surface
lightness or darkness, colour and texture, the background and lighting. Tone is may
be used broadly ('global tone') to denote the major planes of an object; realist artists
use 'local tone' to accurately denote subtle changes within the plane.
Dictionary entries sometimes use define tone or as referring to colour, but artists use
hue or Chroma to refer to this quality, preferring to use tone, tonal value, or value to
describe lightness or darkness.
http://drawsketch.about.com/od/drawingglossary/g/tone.htm
• Define Gamut
In colour reproduction, including computer graphics and photography, the gamut, or
colour gamut (pronounced /ˈɡæmət/), is a certain complete subset of colours. The
most common usage refers to the subset of colours which can be accurately
represented in a given circumstance, such as within a given colour space or by a
certain output device. Another sense, less frequently used but not less correct, refers
to the complete set of colours found within an image at a given time. In this context,
digitizing a photograph, converting a digitized image to a different colour space, or
outputting it to a given medium using a certain output device generally alters its
gamut, in the sense that some of the colours in the original are lost in the process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut
• Define Gradient
In computer graphics, a colour gradient (sometimes called a colour
ramp or colour progression) specifies a range of position-dependent colours,
usually used to fill a region. For example, many window managers allow the screen
background to be specified as a gradient. The colours produced by a gradient vary
continuously with position, producing smooth colour transitions.
A linear colour gradient is specified by two points, and a colour at each point. The
colours along the line through those points are calculated using linear interpolation,
and then extended perpendicular to that line. In digital imaging systems, colours are
typically interpolated in an RGB colour space, often using gamma compressed RGB
colour values, as opposed to linear.
A circular gradient is specified as a circle that has one colour and a focus (the centre
of the circle) that has another. Colours are calculated by linear interpolation based on
distance from the focus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_gradient
Properties of Colour:
- Each colour has a name = hue
- It is either light or dark = value
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8. - Colours are either warm or cool = temperature
- Either bright or dull = intensity
The difference between tint, tone and shade:
- Colour plus black added = shade
- Colour plus grey added = tone
- Colour plus white added = tint
http://coloredpencilpoints.com/defining-tints-tones-and-shades-apart-from-the-other-
aspects-of-color
Contrast & Harmony
Designers employ colour contrasts, scale contrasts and style contrasts to direct flow,
establish focus, and control overall layout hierarchy.
In terms of colour, represent the different types of contrast using the pairs of
swatches below:
Contrast of Value
Contrast of Hue
Complementary Contrast
Contrast of Saturation
Cool / Hot Contrast
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