Color common sense
What is color?
Color is a visual phenomenon caused by visible light. Light is an electromagnetic wave. Visible light with different wavelengths is projected on an object, some of which is absorbed and some of which is reflected to the human eye, and then the brain reflects this stimulus into color information. Therefore, without light, there is no color.
Color element
The three elements of color include hue, lightness and saturation.
Hue, as the primary feature of color, refers to the appearance of color and is the standard for us to distinguish different colors. Hue is composed of primary colors, intermediate colors and complex colors, and the hue is infinitely rich.
Brightness, that is, the brightness of color, reflects the change of color depth. Generally speaking, adding white to the color will improve the brightness, and adding black will reduce the brightness.
Saturation is purity, which refers to the brightness of color. The higher the purity, the brighter the color, the lower the purity and the darker the color.
Color classification
1. Primary colors: The basic colors that cannot be decomposed are called primary colors. Other colors can be synthesized from primary colors, while other colors cannot be restored to primary colors. The three primary colors of color light are red, green and blue, which corresponds to RGB that we often mention.
2. Intermediate color: an intermediate color made by mixing two primary colors. These three rooms are magenta, yellow and cyan. The three primary colors of pigment refer to orange, green and purple.
3. Composite color: a color mixed by primary colors and intermediate colors, or a color mixed by intermediate colors and intermediate colors. Composite colors contain all the three primary colors, but the proportions of the three primary colors are different.
Color source
Behind the development of Chinese and western art are two different color views, one is religious and the other is emotional. One is scientific rigor. Western art originated from Christianity, from theology to science. The cultural logic behind it originates from Aristotle's scientific logic. The concept of color in China culture is based on Yin and Yang, Five Elements, Confucianism, Taoism and metaphysics. Let me briefly talk about the formation process of the respective color views of the East and the West.
east
Up to now, there is no scientific and rigorous color theory system in China, which is closely related to the feudal society in China that lasted for more than two thousand years. The color system that feudal society has always recognized is the five-element color theory based on yin and yang and five elements, which refers to red, yellow, cyan and black and white colorless respectively. The so-called "Dongqing, Nanhong, Xibai, Beihei, Tianxuan and Dihuang" also include "khaki, golden white, wood green, Rise of the Legend and ink painting". On this basis, the feudal society implemented strict "color rule" from top to bottom. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, yellow has been designated as the royal color, and ordinary people should wear plain clothes such as cloth, white and pink. High-purity colors are only popular among nobles. Therefore, it is understandable that people in China now like high chroma colors, such as red and green. Because their demand for color has been suppressed for too long, once this rule is broken, it will erupt like a blowout. Color matching pays attention to integrity. Once some colors in the color circle are banned, it will destroy the overall color matching system. So far, China has not made further progress in colorless theory, nor has he formed a complete and rigorous color theory system. Our neighbor, Japan, began to introduce chromatics during the Meiji Restoration, and as early as the Meiji 9th year, it set up chromatics courses in primary schools. Until today, there are very few professional color organizations in China, so there is no way to connect with developed countries in color.
the west
As early as the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci put forward: "All colors come from light. Without light, there is no color and nothing can be seen. Yellow is the earth, green is water, blue is the sky and atmosphere, red is fire, and black is darkness. " Newton is the originator of western color history. He wrote a book "Optics" and discovered the principle of seven colors of light through the prism principle. Since Newton, color science in the west has gradually developed. Until 100 years ago, American chromatics entered a mature stage and began to lead the world. One of the most famous is Mr. Wang, who created the Munsell system used in various industries today (as shown in the picture, Munsell system is a method of expressing colors with three-dimensional models). At this point, the system of three color attributes (lightness, chromaticity and hue) has been initially established.
Because chromatics has long been implemented in every related field of western society, such as architecture, clothing, decoration, advertising and so on. The choice of color can't be decided by just a few tasteful people, and it needs a rigorous scientific system. Secondly, the introduction of chromatics into the education system has improved the overall aesthetic quality of the people. These are all things that we should learn from western advanced countries.
Sensory characteristics of color
Color can arouse some of our emotions and activate some of our feelings. In recent years, color psychology and color personality theory have become more and more popular, so what are the characteristics of color and what influence can it bring to people? Let's tidy up here.
Cold and warm tones
The warmth and coldness of color is the color feeling accumulated by people in their long life. And cold and warm is a relative concept, which varies from person to person. After all, everyone's living environment is different. Usually, red, orange and pink remind people of fire and the sun, which makes people feel warm. Blue and purple are reminiscent of blue sky, ice and snow, which makes people feel cold. The cold and warm characteristics of colors are often used in daily design. In hot summer, electric fans are essential. The color of electric fans is mostly white, and a few electric fans are red and orange. Although the wind is the same, the red electric fan makes people feel hot more easily. Also in interior design, the cool decoration style makes people feel cool. Experiments show that warm colors and cool colors can make people's psychological temperature difference to the room reach 2~3 degrees.
The weight of color
Color itself has no weight, just an abstract feeling. For example, as shown in the figure, the black hammer with the same size 10 ton looks significantly heavier. We often say that black is thick and deep. White is light and lively. In fact, when we use these adjectives in our life, we have subconsciously given weight to the two colors. When people can't accurately measure the weight of an object by physical methods, they often unconsciously measure it by emotional experience. At this time, the perception of color comes in handy. The weight law of color, the lower the lightness of the same color, the heavier the feeling. The lower the saturation, the heavier the color feeling.
Expansibility of color
Do an experiment and fill two shapes with the same size and shape with different colors, as shown in Figures A and B. When AB is combined, it is obvious that the shape of A is larger than that of B. In terms of tone, warm colors such as red and orange have a sense of expansion. Cool colors such as blue and purple have a sense of contraction. In lightness, the brighter the color, the stronger the sense of color development. The darker the color, the stronger the sense of contraction, especially black. The expansibility of color is widely used in design. Take fashion as an example. It seems that everyone knows that dark clothes are thin and bright clothes are fat. In painting, the rational use of color expansion plays an important role in the balance of the picture.
The sense of advance and retreat of color
Colors at the same distance from the human eye, some in front and some in the back. This is the sense of advance and retreat of color, that is, color has a sequential relationship in the process of contrast. Generally speaking, complementary colors have the strongest contrast, so the relationship between the two colors is the most obvious visually. "Red, green, yellow, blue, white and black" three groups of complementary color combinations, the front is red, yellow and white. In terms of lightness, those with high lightness are in the front and those with low lightness are in the back. In terms of saturation, the high saturation color comes first and the low saturation color comes last. When we do design work, we can use the advance and retreat characteristics of colors to create a sense of space, and can also be used to emphasize the main object. When making up, eye shadow usually uses dark color, which is to use this principle to shape the three-dimensional sense of eye socket. In Japanese flower arrangement art, cool flowers are usually placed in the back and warm flowers are placed in the front to create a sense of depth.
Color meaning
In fact, color itself is meaningless, but color can remind us of something or a memory, which in turn affects our mood. In fact, people live by experience and habits. Colors can remind us of past experiences and habits, so colors are meaningful. The meaning is not the color itself, but what the color brings us. Color is difficult to be measured rationally. Different people will feel different when they see colors. For example, most people think of plants, life and other positive things when they see green, but some people think of cuckoldry because he has been hurt by such a sad emotional life. He can say that he hates green. However, we exclude these individual elements and select most conventional situations. The meaning of color to people is that it has a lot of * * *. Here I have compiled some conventional meanings for everyone to see.
Color matching
Collocation pattern
Common collocation methods include monochrome collocation, approximate color collocation, complementary color collocation, split complementary color collocation and primary color collocation. As shown below.
Collocation principle
There are many ways to match colors. Here is a method that I personally agree with. Japanese designer まりっぺ put forward the principle of color matching ratio of 70%, 25% and 5%. 70% of the picture is the background color, and the largest piece is often determined by the background color. 25% of the area is the main color, and the main color area is mostly used in the core area of the picture. 5% is an emphasis color, which plays the role of finishing touch in the picture. Emphasis colors are mostly colors that have a big contrast with the main color, and you can also try to use the complementary relationship of colors to stand out.
Of course, in practical work, many times pictures will not only have three colors. In this case, まりっぺ advocates cutting in the existing color scheme so as not to affect the color matching ratio.
Color mode
Common color modes are RGB, CMYK and HSB. RGB is a color light display mode, and it is also the mode used by most electronic display frequencies. RGB refers to red, green and blue respectively, which are also called the three primary colors of color and light. According to the optical principle, the color recognized by human eyes is the light wave reflected by the object. When light waves are projected to the human eye, the more superimposed colored light, the brighter the color. Each pixel in the electronic screen is composed of three colors: red, green and blue, and then these three colors display various colors with different brightness combinations. On this basis, thousands of pixels are combined into a complete picture with different colors.
CMYK usually refers to the printing color system. The characteristics of pigment are opposite to color light, and the darker it is. Therefore, the three primary colors of pigments must be colors that can absorb R, G and B, that is, the complementary colors of R, G and B: cyan, magenta and yellow. Because there is no perfect pigment, perfect black can't be blended by superposition, so black is added on the basis of these three colors. Although RGB and CMYK are different color systems, under normal circumstances, they can be transformed into each other.
Different from the color formation principles of RGB and CMYK, the color principle of HSB mode is more in line with the principle of color attributes, namely hue, lightness and saturation. This is also more in line with the judgment principle of human eyes. H stands for hue hue hue, s stands for saturation, and b stands for brightness. In practical use, it is more convenient than RGB and CMYK modes. Designers are advised to try this method when mixing colors. This color mode is usually installed in drawing software.