This document provides an introduction to the study of color for designers. It discusses color as a sensory experience that is perceived differently depending on whether it is seen as direct or reflected light. Color is influenced by many factors and is interpreted subjectively. The document outlines different levels of color awareness and uses in design, including to express mood, create emphasis, or provide warnings. It also introduces various color order models and systems developed by Munsell and Albers to objectively describe and combine colors. The goal of color study is to learn to discriminate hue, value, saturation and use color control skillfully in design.

1. Understanding Color:
An Introduction for Designers
An Introduction for Designers
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Color Study

2. Color is stimulating...

3. calming...

4. expressive...

5. disturbing...

6. impressional...

7. cultural...

8. exuberant...

9. symbolic.

10. Forms, colors and their arrangement are the foundation elements
of design, and color is the most powerful.

11. A skilled colorist understands what color is, how it is seen, why it changes, its suggestive
power, and how to apply that knowledge to enhance the marketability of a product.

12. Whether the product is a graphic design...

13. an item of apparel...

14. an interior...

15. automobile...

16. toaster...

17. garden...

18. or anything else, good coloring can determine its success or failure
in the consumer marketplace.

19. Color is, first, a sensory event.
Colors are true sensations, not abstractions or ideas.
Colors are true sensations, not abstractions or ideas.

20. The beginnning of every color experience is a
physiological response to a stimulus of light.

21. Colors are experienced in two different ways:

22. Colors on a monitor or screen are seen as
direct light.
direct light.

23. The colors of the physical world - of printed pages,
objects, and the environment - are seen as
reflected light.
reflected light.

24. The perception
of colored light
is a
straightforward
experience:
light reaches
the eye directly
from a light
source.

25. The experience of real-world color is a more complex event.

26. Real-world colors are seen indirectly, as light
reflected from a surface

27. For tangible objects and printed pages, light is the cause of
color, colorants (like paints or dyes) are the means used to
generate color, and the colors that are seen are the effect.

28. Cause Light
Means Colorants
Effect Colors Seen

29. All colors, whether they are seen as direct or reflected
light, are unstable. Every change in light or medium
has the potential to change the way a color is
perceived.

30. In addition, not everyone sees or interprets colors in
quite the same way.

31. These differences in perception are hard to define
except in the cases of extreme visual disfunction (as in
color blindness).
Normal Red/Green Color Blindness

32. Colors are understood at different levels
of awareness.

33. Environmental color, whether natural or man-made,
is all-encompassing.

34. Yet we are often unaware of the color around us - even
though the color can affect our mood or disposition.

35. The separateness of an object allows the viewer to
focus on a single entity and single color idea.

36. Graphic colors are the colors of images: painted,
drawn, printed, or on-screen.

37. Colors on a monitor screen are seen as direct light.

38. But objects are seen as reflected light.

39. Since nearly all design today is done on a monitor screen which
uses direct light, careful consideration must be made of how the
designed product will look in reflected light.

40. Color has many uses:

41. It can increase or
decrease available
light.

42. It can modify the perception of space, creating illusions of size,
nearness, separation, or distance. It can also increase or decrease
available light.

43. It can be used to create continuity between
separated elements in design...

44. ...to establish emphasis or create focus in a
composition.

45. Color can express mood or emotion.

46. Colors can be used to alert, to warn, or to provide
discrimination between objects of similar form and
size.

47. It can be nonverbal language; communicating ideas
without words.

48. A color-order model, or color system, is a
structured model of color relationships.

49. Technical-
scientific
systems
measure color
under limited
conditions, and
most deal with
the colors of
light.

50. Commercial color-order
systems are systematic
arrangements of colors
meant to assist the user in
selecting colors from a
limited palette.

51. Intellectual-philosophical systems explore the meaning
and organization of color.

52. True color systems attempt to illustrate all colors and
include the option of adding colors beyond those illustrated.

53. Color collections offer a fixed and limited number of
colors to help the user in making a selection within a single
product or group of related products.

54. Color study focuses FIRST on learning to
discriminate objective attributes of color:

55. Hue

56. Value

57. Saturation

58. The SECOND focus of color study is
color control.
color control.

59. Color control is the ability to use color skillfully to
facilitate the idea or meaning the designer is trying to
create.

60. Color study also provides guidelines for creating effective
color combinations.

61. Many color courses are based on the writings of Albert
Munsell (1858-1918)

62. Munsell’s system is based on formal
progressions of hue, value, and
saturation.

63. The color experiments of Josef Albers
(1888-1976) also inform students of
color.

64. Albers stressed the power of eye-training exercises.

65. In this course, we will learn about both
artists’ systems and how to use them in
design.