Everything About Color Theory:

Table of Contents:

• Color Theory
• What are Complementary Colors?
• What Does Red and Green Make?
• What are Analogous Colors?
• What are Triadic Colors?
• The Contrast of Colors Itself
• What Shades Exist?
• The Psychological Impact of Colors
• What are Color Families?
• How Do Colors Form?
• Are Black and White Colors?
• What are Good Color Combinations?
• Johannes Itten’s Color Wheel
• What is Color Symbolism?
• Everything Summed Up Briefly

Color Theory:

Color theory is a system used to organize colors. It consists of simple rules and is highly significant for every artist, graphic designer, and designer. Fortunately, the theory is quite simple and easy to learn quickly.

Color theory deals with the stimulation of the eye and brain, the laws of color mixing, and the organization of colors. However, in this article, we will not discuss the biological side but focus solely on the design-related aspects.

What are Complementary Colors?

Complementary colors are complementary hues, and they are especially important in creating appealing designs. Some key points to note are:

• Every color has exactly one complementary color.
• Mixing two complementary colors results in a grayish-black color.
• The complementary color of a hue lies directly opposite it on the color wheel.

Additionally, it’s interesting to note that all colors consist of three primary colors: blue, green, and red. Complementary colors are used in almost every design. They pair well together, and their contrasts are generally pleasing to the human eye.

A color wheel is a helpful tool to quickly find the complementary color of any hue. On the color wheel, the complementary color is always opposite the chosen color. You can use this for any of your images, designs, or posters.

What Does Red and Green Make?

The combination of red and green creates the color yellow. The realization that all our colors are made from just three primary colors might be new to many, and it’s an interesting fact to consider.

What are Analogous Colors?

Similar to complementary colors, analogous colors are also found on the color wheel. However, they are not directly opposite but sit next to each other. A good example would be red and orange or green and yellow.

What are Triadic Colors?

These colors can also be found on the color wheel. Triadic colors are vibrant and dynamic to the human eye. An example of triadic colors would be light blue, bright yellow, and white.

Contrast of Colors Itself:

When combining at least two pure colors (e.g., red, blue, and green), a contrast of colors emerges. This contrast increases the further apart the colors are from each other on the color wheel. For example, a high-contrast combination would be green, yellow, and blue.

This effect is frequently used in design, especially in web design, where the contrast of colors is used to draw the user's attention to specific areas, objects, or functions.

The only downside to using this contrast is that the colors next to each other often don't look as visually appealing. This effect should only be used when truly necessary.

What Shades Exist?

The simple color wheel consists of 12 colors. Three of these are universally known as primary colors: red, green, and blue. Alongside these, there are three secondary colors: green, orange, and purple. The remaining six colors are called tertiary colors, such as light green, light blue, and so on.

Of course, there are more than just these 12 colors. These would include additional mixtures, brightness, and contrast variations. However, not all these variations can fit within a color wheel, so only the "most important" colors are included.

In web development, color codes are mostly used in the rgba format. This indicates the red, green, and blue values for each color. The difference between RGB and RGBA is that RGBA also includes the transparency (opacity) of the color. This allows for the creation of more colors through layering, transparency, and different opacity effects.

The Psychological Impact of Colors:

Each color evokes a different emotion in a person. While this can vary from person to person, there are certain rules that generally apply to most people.

• Cool colors like blue are calming and evoke trust. This is why many insurance companies, banks, and even politicians consciously use blue in their websites, logos, and clothing.
• Warm colors like red, orange, and yellow are stimulating and energizing. Depending on the brightness, they can also make you feel tired: the lighter they are, the more awake they make you; the darker they are, the sleepier they make you.
• Certain colors make spaces appear larger and assist with better orientation or the creation of illusions in spatial design.
• These are just a few examples of the psychological impact of colors, and emotions triggered by colors can differ from person to person.

What are Color Families?

Color families are all the colors derived from a particular base color. 

They differ in appearance but are based on the same mixing colors. The differences arise from brightness, contrast, or transparency (opacity). For example, light blue, blue, dark blue, and midnight blue all fall under the blue color family.

An important point for web designers is that these colors combine well. Mixing them and using them in different aspects of a design or functionality results in a pleasant and attractive design. Architects, graphic designers, and advertising copywriters often make use of color theory.

How Do Colors Form?

Every color impression is subjective. 

It has not yet been proven whether everyone perceives color in the same way. For example, blue might not look the same to everyone. A color impression is formed through our visual system, where light waves hit our retina. However, from the retina to the actual image, there is still a long way to go.

The images we perceive are upside down initially, but our brain corrects them so we see them the right way up. The colors are also measured on the retina and sent via the optic nerve to our brain for processing.

We perceive white light when too much light hits our retina at once. There is an unproven theory that suggests different color perceptions due to variations in eye color, but this has not yet been verified. Some animals are colorblind and can only distinguish between black-and-white contrasts.

Are Black and White Colors?

Not exactly. You can recognize "colors" like black and white, but black isn't considered a true color. Black means that a material doesn't reflect light (or reflects very little), so your retina receives no light.

On the other hand, "white" is closer to being considered a color. It occurs when a material reflects all light waves, and those waves hit your retina.

However, as a layperson, it’s fine to refer to black and white as colors, since otherwise discussions could become unnecessarily complicated. In programs, crayons, and markers, the terms black and white are used as colors.

What are Good Color Combinations?

To find good color combinations for your website or design, you can refer to the color wheel. 

However, beautiful combinations don’t always have to be based on complementary colors.

Therefore, we’ve summarized some of the best and most appealing color combinations for your website or design.

Here are a few combinations for your website or design:

1. Pink and Dark Blue
   Designer color codes: #E5216 and #0D1137
2. Red, Seafoam, and Violet
   Designer color codes: #D72631, #A2D5C6, and #077B8A
3. Yellow, Magenta, Cyan, and Black
   Designer color codes: #E2D810, #D9138A, #12A4D9, and #322E2F
4. Mustard and Black
   Designer color codes: #F3CA20 and #000000
5. Magenta, Goldenrod, Turquoise, and Brick Red
   Designer color codes: #CF1578, #E8D21D, #039FBE, and #B20238
6. Various Pink Tones and Brown
   Designer color codes: #E75874, #BE1558, #FBCBC9, and #322514
7. Gold, Charcoal, and Gray
   Designer color codes: #EF9D10, #3B4D61, and #6B7B8C
8. Navy Blue, Almond, Orange, and Mango
   Designer color codes: #1E3D59, #F5F0E1, #FF6E40, and #FFC13B
9. Light Brown, Grayish or Dark Turquoise, and Black
   Designer color codes: #ECC19C, #1E847F, and #000000
10. Navy Blue, Ochre, Sienna, and Light Gray
    Designer color codes: #26495C, #C4A35A, #C66B3D, and #E5E5DC

Johannes Itten’s Color Wheel:

Johannes Itten was a Swiss artist and painter. He worked as a teacher at the Bauhaus school and developed the 12-color color wheel, which still significantly influences design today, both digitally and analogously.

Without Johannes Itten, color theory might not have advanced as much as it has today. He played an essential role in shaping our current web experiences.

What is Color Symbolism?

As mentioned earlier, color symbolism deals with the meanings of colors and motifs and the properties of colors. Some colors are particularly strongly associated with specific motifs and emotions. Human traits, feelings, and basic experiences can be conveyed through colors.

To make your website or advertisement poster particularly effective, you should pay attention not only to web design and graphic design but also to color theory and color symbolism. 

This way, you can turn your users into customers and consciously direct their attention to specific areas, objects, functions, and elements.

The color blue is especially recommended when you want to convey trust, such as for products, services, or websites. 

In contrast, dating platforms often use stimulating colors like red and orange. These warm colors are energizing and subconsciously keep users engaged longer on their platforms.

Everything Summed Up Briefly:

Color theory deals with various colors. Thanks to it, there is a unified system to help you choose the right colors for your design. The color wheel is perhaps the most famous tool for finding the right colors for your design, poster, or website.

There are endless shades, but the real primary colors are often described within a spectrum of 12 basic hues. Every color is a mix of the three primary colors: red, blue, and green (used in the RGB system).

Color families are groups of colors that are mixed from the same primary colors but differ in brightness, contrast, and opacity.

Color symbolism describes the emotions triggered by colors in humans and how to use them for personal advantage. A good example is that blue is used to evoke trust.
Johannes Itten’s color wheel is still used today, encompassing the 12 most important or commonly used colors, greatly influencing color theory today.