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COLOR THEORY BASICS :: Color Wheel

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The colour wheel is a visual representation of colour theory. Colors are arranged according to their chromatic relationship. Primary colors are positioned equidistant from one another and are connected by a bridge using secondary and tertiary colors
primary color wheel
PRIMARY COLORS
Red, yellow and blue :: In traditional color theory, these are the 3 pigment colors that can not be mixed or formed by any combination of other colors. All other colors are derived from these 3 hues

secondary color wheel
SECONDARY COLORS
Orange, green and violet :: Colors created by a mixture of two primaries.
tertiary color wheel
TERTIARY COLORS
Red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet and red-violet :: Colors created by a mixture of primary and secondary hues.
complementary color wheel
COMPLEMENTARY COLORS
Colors located opposite each other on a colour wheel.
analogous color wheel
ANALOGOUS COLORS
Colours located close together on a colour wheel.
24 November, 2006
Comments 10
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Comments

Showing 1 - 10 of 10 Comments

lizcrimso…
lizcrimson wrote:
8 Dec, 2006
nice. i'm just teaching this at school.

John
John wrote:
19 Dec, 2006
Thanks. I'm just about to start learning colour theory!

maggiom
maggiom wrote:
26 Dec, 2006
There are many things about the traditional color wheel that are misleading. Please consider showing the CMYk and RGB wheels as well.

hoshinobi…
16 Jan, 2007
much appreciated.
a nice and quick review.
as maggiom said though, let`s go deeper!
deeper colour lovers with cmyk and rbg,,
and deeper still.
how deep can we go?

shepherdo…
shepherdog wrote:
24 Sep, 2007
Personally it doesn't matter whether it's a RGB or CMYK color wheel. Cos once I understand the color relationship and color schemes, I'd pick the colors from the software I'm working in, eg Adobe Illustrator, and it'll tell me it's color mixture.

To me color is part science, part art.

Science - wherever there’s light, there’s color. White light contains all visible colors, which form an infinite spectrum that appears in the red-to-violent sequence, like a rainbow.

Art - with a tool like a color wheel, one would be able to choose the various shades and tints from the different color schemes such as complement and monochromatic.

This short article demystifies color and help one find the perfect colors for not only websites, but whatever that requires the use of colors. :)

Hope it helps.

Cheers!

Sherman

manekinek…
manekineko wrote:
9 Oct, 2007
@shepherdog

Your article just gives color wheel basics, there's nothing there about finding perfect colors etc?

twinkleva…
10 Oct, 2007
Crazy baby. Hope I can add this to favs somehow.

webseitle…
webseitler wrote:
10 Oct, 2007
Adorable little hearts! :D

whit-dogg
whit-dogg wrote:
29 Feb, 2008
i like it alot

DeanChalk
DeanChalk wrote:
24 Feb, 2009
Hi All

I saw an Expression Design tutorial video, where the guy had a color wheel image on his design surface, and overlayed masking shapes to allow the selection of complimentary colors.

Does anyone know where I can get these for Expression Design ?

They looked really usefull

Thanks

Dean


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