Colour Design Assignment - Coursework Example

Colour Design Assignment The main aim of this essay is to write about colour scheme and that means 3 pleasant and 3 unpleasant schemes and this assignment will be to experiment and applying colour. Colour preference can be termed as complex phenomenon and there should be judgment why one colour will be chosen over others. When choosing the colour scheme, there are many factors that will be done to choose the colour scheme. That includes the saturated colour usage, the desaturated colour usage, Hues which are not normally used in colour preference, contrast and lightness value which is the most important factor. The colour preference factors will be best understood by the choosing elements of building facade and the reason behind this was that there will be some sort of control over the colour experiment and that was the main reason behind using the building elements. For all colour schemes, I used the front face of building, which was broken into two by a middle wall trimming. The smaller areas I classified as the window, guttering & roof trimming. PREFERRED COLOUR SCHEMES (Pleasant colour schemes) I created my preferred colour schemes through amplifying my colour knowledge and the ideas of colour preference derived from research. I experimented with all factors that influence a person to be attracted to a colour scheme. COLOUR SCHEME 1. In the first colour scheme, I was focused on the lightness contrast effect to do with colour preference. I had shown the effect of using greyer colour and that bad effect has been shown. In this I would like to present before you the valuable of a good contrasting colour scheme and I have used a light colour purple at the top and the basement has been having a brown colour. I thought for the second colour scheme I would shift my application, to focus on the effects of colour saturation on colour preference. Using my colour knowledge and experience from the first assignment, I explored further how the size of an area of a colour and its saturation- could also affect colour preference. This colour scheme explores two ideas of colour preference: 1/ HOW BIG THE AREA IS THAT IS COLOURED? 2/ HOW SATURATED THE AREA IS? From the colour preference research, it states that the larger an area of an object- and its area coloured is of a less saturated colour. And the smaller areas of the object are coloured more saturated- the more the colour scheme is preferred. Taking these colour preference ideas, I began to design a pleasant colour scheme by not going through the research. This has been the main reason for going for purple colour at the top of the building and that means the saturation has been clearly defined. The two sorts of colours that has been tried to work was purple and brown colour. Both are becoming more of dark colours in the spectrum and that means the purple colour should be made lighter to make the end product more beautiful as the main part of the building has to be in the lighter colour. I have worked with two sorts of hues, brown & purples colours. The hue column able to see that the purple and brown colours are close together on the hue colour wheel. However, I made these hues slightly different by increasing the saturation of brown Colour and increasing its brightness. I made change to purple colour and that has meant that there was lightness to purple colour. From designing this colour scheme, I learnt that very high (or even very low) levels of lightness increase how pleasant a colour scheme maybe. The smaller areas of the façade (e.g. window trim) were painted with Colour black, grey and white and this was done as they hold a level of saturation. There was purposeful increase of the saturation of brown to make purple look more attractive. The smaller areas of the object were given the more preference by going for grey, white and black colour as the purple and brown colour will get more preference. There will be clear understanding of the boundaries by using the colours brown and white. Colour Scheme 2 After concentrating on all the elements that make up colour preference, I thought I’d start designing this colour scheme differently. I decided to create a colour scheme that would make more creative insight to the building. To begin with I ignored the saturation & brightness of the colour, and decided on the colours that would fit into the context of the building. To achieve this, I used the ‘colour picker tool’ in Photoshop and looked at the hue, saturation & brightness of the aqua colour in the background of the picture. The colour aqua has been referred to the colour that has been seen in the underwater and it is one colour that can be said as the saturated version of blue colour. The main reason for trying this colour on the building was to make sure that the building looks more creatively outward. The contrast colour that has been tried on the bottom of the building and that was green. The green colour has been said to be having dark colour and saturated high. This is the darker version of the green colour. There were other versions of not trying out various colours on the window and small trimmings as I thought it deemed to keep the white, grey and black colours to it. The reason why I would like to keep it like that was to ensure that the background colours and the bottom colours have been bought to the front. The main attraction can be said as the aqua colour and that means the building will be attractive more on the frontal side. The colour inspired me to think of the alternative colours that can make this building more attractive. There was lot of thinking over to go for dark blue or deep blue colour. Blue has been a normally a favourite colour of both men and women. The deeper blue colour will be more representing the black colours and that attribute does not work for lighter version of blue colours. That meant that I should be deciding on the version of blue colour. There was confusion whether I should be going for navy blue colour. The navy blue colour does not have shades of green and red colour. But I decided going against it as I found out that the navy colour will make the top of the building darker and on thinking I thought that the lighter colour would be more attractive and that has meant that I would be ignoring a colour that has symbolically meant to be more of confidence, power and authority. Then I thought about whether the building top should be of authority. The more I thought about it I came to conclusion that the building top should be having a colour that can induce the feeling of welcomeness and that is how I started the searching for lighter version of colours. The aim was to create a conservative but a look that will be more sophisticated and the contrast would be more subtle and that meant that blue colour has got more meaning. The more I thought about I decided on using green and blue together as about colours can give a lasting impression on the mind of the viewers. I found out the colour that can be said as the colour that has been on the middle of the colour wheel between the green and blue and that has meant I zeroed in on Aqua. Aqua has been colour of the electric cyan version and that means aqua was more on like the chart shown below Hue Colour -1 Magenta 0 Red 1 Yellow 2 Green 3 Aqua 4 Blue 5 Magenta The Hue, saturation and light of Aqua can be said as having 180, 100 and 87 with all figures in percentage. The name of the colour that has been chosen can be said as the pretty aqua colour not too light and not too dark. The bottom colour was chosen as green as it can be a colour of harmony. The green colour has got the respect as a very good stress reliever and it was on this background that I approached green colour. The green colour can be attributed very positively to factors like growth, renewal, health and environment and though English usage has made a green as a colour if envy, I decided to use green colour on the positive side. The green colour has all the calming attributes of blue colour and that means green colour has got more meaning when used with various shades of blue. It can be said as water and forest can signify new beginning and that has meant that green colour would be making the aqua colour brighter. The aqua colour has been more vibrant and that has meant that the colour did not have any vibrancy in it and did not have any white element inside it. That has meant that using of white in other parts of the building will be more accounted for and will be prettier. This was the reason for going for white and black in other parts of the building and aqua has been having a slight tinge of green in it and that can have compliment the dark green colour that has been at the bottom of the buidig.Using dark colour at the bottom along with green was meat to make sure that green colour does get more attention. Using white along with green would have meant that white would have grabbed more headlines and that would have meant that the beauty of the building would have altered. This was the main reason in going for white and black. There was using of blackness and white along the window and window trimming to get a polished look and sophisticated look. Colour scheme 3 The colour that has been used in the building has been the shade of the orange and brown and that has meant that there was retention of white and black colour also in the picture. This has been done in such a way that the colour orange has been on the forefront and colour brown has been kept at the bottom to give a pleasant variation to the building. The main thought begin this idea was when I started eating carrot one day for evening snack. That was when I thought of giving orange a try for the building. There was additional thought from my side as I found out that carrot has been a vegetable that has been growing at the bottom of earth and that means that the colour that has to be contrasted should be brown in colour. There was more study done by me and I found out that brown colour can be found out by mixing orange and grey colour and that knowledge did satisfy me more as I could relate to the fact that I am trying to use a colour that has been close to the shade that is on the top. That meant I was going for a lighter contrasting option and I felt that was the right way of approaching the issue. The carrot orange can be said as having a tint of orange splashed across its spectrum. If anyone would be wondering about the usage of carrot orange, then they would be surprised to know that country Netherlands uses that colour in the flag. It was in this background that I approached the issue of colouring the house and that meant that I would be more going for orange at the top. The colours like white grey and black will be working wonders with building that has used orange colour and this is in this background that dark brown was used. There was a thought for using chocolate brown and that was removed as it was found out that the best way to approach the issue was to have a clear idea about the contrasting colour that can be sued. The brown was a colour that had all the ingredients of neutral colour and Light brown implies genuineness while dark brown is similar to wood or leather. The picture or the image that has been shown above should be looked closer to understand the value of black when used with orange colour. The usage of white when used with carrot orange colour should be understood more. This has been done in such a way that the white and black colour has been used for making the orange colour more attractive. This has been done more effectively in the bottom very well by giving a tinge of brown colour that has been done with black colour. There has to be a plan for using white colour and that was done effectively going across both the shades namely the orange and brown colour. This has helped to make sure that there is a look of attraction for both the colours and has made the building more pleasant to watch. It was on this background that we can safely say that this colour combination that has been used has been more of pleasant in nature. Brown has been said to be found closer to the orange colour in the spectrum. Unpreferred Colour scheme From all my experience & understanding of the components that make up a colour schemes that are pleasant. I used this knowledge and reversed these ideas to create unpleasant colour schemes. I believe that without the colour preference theory, I would not have been able to make such successful unpleasant colour schemes. The main inspiration from using the colours inside the scheme has been the fact that there are many colours that can leave a pleasant and unpleasant taste on the viewers. Colour scheme 4 It is proven through colour preference research, that colour schemes that have colours with large differences of colour lightness are most preferred. Therefore, I wanted to test & experiment with this idea. I wanted to illustrate my colour knowledge, so I purposely choose hues that were extreme in brightness contrast & made sure that degrees between the hues were highly spaced on the colour wheel. Taking the principles of colour preference, for the large areas of the facade I, selected hues with full brightness e.g. colour white had brightness of 100%. This meant that white looked ‘super’ white as it took the main focus of the building’s facade. As for the smaller areas of the facade, such as the window trimming, I deliberately selected colours with low brightness e.g. colour black has 0%, this was to show in full the idea of lightness contrast. Designing the colour scheme enabled me to explore the colour space and I learnt that contrast was actually the relationship between colours in the colour space/model. I discovered that the bigger the difference in lightness contrast produces a bigger contrasting effect- that therefore creates a greater colour preference. Lightness contrast is the biggest factor, to impact colour preference. Therefore, white & black are the two colours that have the biggest impact e.g. Philip Stark designs, uses such colours from the table above. However sometimes when using black & white may seem strange, too hard or glary this maybe because the more contrast doesn’t necessarily mean better. From creating this colour scheme I realized that large lightness differences between large areas coloured and smaller areas coloured of the facade, generates a pleasant colour combination. The idea of lightness contrast & how effects colour preference is reflected in this colour scheme flawlessly. The idea behind using grey colour more and using white light less has been to show the flaw when using grey colour more in a design. It can be called a poor design for eye sight and it need not be followed in the home design outside. Colour scheme 5 The colour combination that has been used in this picture has been used earlier and that was carrot orange and brown. The same idea when it was applied once again by using the dark orange or the burnt orange has meant there was a disaster result as both the colours has been darker. It was on this background that the image has to be viewed. The image when looked closely will be showing a darkness and that meant that the colour combination of lightness and darkness has been thrown out and it was not made a viable option even by applying white colour. To make the matters worse, there was retention of black colours and it was not meant to improve the situation. If the image had been splashed with white colours more and less black colours, it would have given a feeling of brightness to a certain extent. There was lot of shadow colours that has been used in this image and that has meant that the image gets blurred in contrast. There has been more of a brighter look that can be said as not the best way of option of going forward. The top most part of orange colour can be removed and it can be replaced by another version or the other best option is to remove both the colours and get forward with some other colour. Colour scheme 6 This has been an image that can be said as the yellow orange and brown colour. This has been seen as usage of warm colour more. There has been wrong use of black and white colour that has been splashed across the building. The yellow orange can be said as the golden orange colour. The colour has been different from the metallic gold and that has to be understood in more detail. The yellow that has been used in the orange colour can be said as very strong colour and that means the white colour that has been used in the building fades very well when contrasted with the orange colour. It can be also seen as orange that has been splashed by yellow and that makes or gives an awkward look to the building. CONCLUSION From this assignment, I developed a greater understanding about colours & colour schemes. I began this course only understanding colour in linguistic terms. However, over this semester I began to think about colour systemically. A colour is no longer just a colour- there is a deeper layer than that. Each colour occupies a unique space on the 3d colour model. (“Changing Colours”, )What make this position unique are the hue, saturation & brightness values of that colour. Therefore, I used these elements of colour to experiment in creating colours that combined together to generate pleasant or unpleasant colour schemes. Photoshop allowed me be flexible &free to explore the colour space. There are many beliefs that advancing & receding colours are based upon hues. This is not true & I have thoroughly proven this though my 6 colour schemes. What I did learn is that contrast & lightness are two major factors that impact colour preference. Contrast, is the relationship of colour and its background, and lightness is the difference in white & black axis on the colour model. Contrast is to do with human vision, the ability to see boundaries in a colour scheme. Similar hues it is often difficult to see the object colour and background colour. The mechanism of vision tries to let you see the contrast, this makes sense that contrast is the heavily impacts preference, because vision likes to discriminate two colours. The biggest of the contrast is the chromatic contrast white on black, & black on white. There has been normally disadvantage on the design that I have used and that means I have never experimented on any other colour other than black and white for the window colour. The six images have been used with only black and white. The other disadvantage that has been said will be the use of orange colour more with three variants of orange colour in the sense of one carrot orange, dark orange and golden orange being used with three colours having the same contrast of brown. There has been one pleasant colour in the form of carrot orange and that has not been the performance when dark orange and golden orange was used. There was another mismatch in the use of grey and white and black colour and that was meant to be unpleasant colour. There has been good use of purple colour, aqua colour and carrot orange colour. The contrast in these three pleasant colours has been suited to the top colours and that has meant using green, brown and dark brown. There was sense in using the contrasting colours more and that has meant that the colours did look better even when using the same black and white colours in the smaller areas. There has been extensive use of creativity in the three pleasant colours though there was less creativity that has been used in the Unpreferred colours. Overall, I enjoyed designing these 6 colour schemes, exploring the colour space & experimenting with factors that affect colour preference. Reference “Changing Colours”, retrieved from July 27,2007viewed from http://web.arch.usyd.edu.au/~terry/DAAE2005/html/assignments/1_4d_tutorial1.html Read More

I have worked with two sorts of hues, brown & purples colours. The hue column able to see that the purple and brown colours are close together on the hue colour wheel. However, I made these hues slightly different by increasing the saturation of brown Colour and increasing its brightness. I made change to purple colour and that has meant that there was lightness to purple colour. From designing this colour scheme, I learnt that very high (or even very low) levels of lightness increase how pleasant a colour scheme maybe.

The smaller areas of the façade (e.g. window trim) were painted with Colour black, grey and white and this was done as they hold a level of saturation. There was purposeful increase of the saturation of brown to make purple look more attractive. The smaller areas of the object were given the more preference by going for grey, white and black colour as the purple and brown colour will get more preference. There will be clear understanding of the boundaries by using the colours brown and white.

Colour Scheme 2 After concentrating on all the elements that make up colour preference, I thought I’d start designing this colour scheme differently. I decided to create a colour scheme that would make more creative insight to the building. To begin with I ignored the saturation & brightness of the colour, and decided on the colours that would fit into the context of the building. To achieve this, I used the ‘colour picker tool’ in Photoshop and looked at the hue, saturation & brightness of the aqua colour in the background of the picture.

The colour aqua has been referred to the colour that has been seen in the underwater and it is one colour that can be said as the saturated version of blue colour. The main reason for trying this colour on the building was to make sure that the building looks more creatively outward. The contrast colour that has been tried on the bottom of the building and that was green. The green colour has been said to be having dark colour and saturated high. This is the darker version of the green colour.

There were other versions of not trying out various colours on the window and small trimmings as I thought it deemed to keep the white, grey and black colours to it. The reason why I would like to keep it like that was to ensure that the background colours and the bottom colours have been bought to the front. The main attraction can be said as the aqua colour and that means the building will be attractive more on the frontal side. The colour inspired me to think of the alternative colours that can make this building more attractive.

There was lot of thinking over to go for dark blue or deep blue colour. Blue has been a normally a favourite colour of both men and women. The deeper blue colour will be more representing the black colours and that attribute does not work for lighter version of blue colours. That meant that I should be deciding on the version of blue colour. There was confusion whether I should be going for navy blue colour. The navy blue colour does not have shades of green and red colour. But I decided going against it as I found out that the navy colour will make the top of the building darker and on thinking I thought that the lighter colour would be more attractive and that has meant that I would be ignoring a colour that has symbolically meant to be more of confidence, power and authority.

Then I thought about whether the building top should be of authority. The more I thought about it I came to conclusion that the building top should be having a colour that can induce the feeling of welcomeness and that is how I started the searching for lighter version of colours. The aim was to create a conservative but a look that will be more sophisticated and the contrast would be more subtle and that meant that blue colour has got more meaning. The more I thought about I decided on using green and blue together as about colours can give a lasting impression on the mind of the viewers.

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