Best Practices for Graphic Designers, Color Works

To clearly understand how color combinations work,

designers must use a color wheel that has primary,

secondary, and tertiary (or more) colors. Looking at

the wheel illustrates that these relationships are often

not linear, but annular.

Relativity &

Reactivity of

Color

182 Color Works The Foundation

6.5

Relaltivity & Reactivity of Color

Analogous combinations are adjacent colors on the color spectrum or

wheel. Visually, they emit a sense of balance and brilliance of color to

the eye. This combination can also exist as a split analogous combina-

tion, in which three hues are positioned one step away from one another

on the color wheel. Triadic or triad combinations are terms that speak

for themselves. These allow a designer to select a combination of three

hues that are in equidistant positions from one another on the color

wheel. Primary color combinations are incredibly harsh in tone. If a

triadic combination consists of two related primary hues, the results

are less harsh. But as secondary and tertiary hues, and those beyond,

are combined, the results are much less assertive.

Complementary combinations can be defined in three distinct levels:

the basic complementary combination, double complementary, and

split complementary. Complementary combinations include two con-

trasting, polar hues in opposing positions on the color wheel; for example,

red and green or orange and blue. This type of combination, through

contrasting attributes, creates a reactivity rather than a relativity of

color. The resultant combinations give the perception that the colors

are in movement. Double complementary combinations are a simple

concept in which creating a pair of combinations increases a comple-

mentary combination’s intensity; this is often known as a tetradic

combination. Split complementary combinations consist of three hues,

with two of the hues selected from adjacent sides of the complementary

color of the third hue.

The State of Contrast

The power of relativity and reactivity is shown at its strongest with the

idea of contrasting, where contrast is the juxtaposition of different hues.

Contrast is commonly used within graphic design to provide more

dominance, suspense, and clarity over form, image, and typography.

Johannes Itten experimented extensively with contrast. He observed

differing levels of contrast, from light to dark, with achromatic and

complementary hues that contrast with analogous, warm or cool hues.

He devised seven clear methods of how to juxtapose hues:

1

Contrast of

hues;

2

Contrast complements;

3

Contrast of proportions;

4

Contrast

of light and dark;

5

Contrast of saturation;

6

Simultaneous contrast;

and

7

Contrast of warm and cool.

The greater the distance between hues on the color wheel, the greater

the difference in intensity. Juxtaposing hues from opposing sides of the

color wheel creates complementary color contrasts. Proportional con-

trasts are made up of different opposing proportional regions. Itten

states that the relationships between “large–small, long–short, wide–

narrow, thick–thin” in turn create relationships to the perceptive weight

of each hue, allowing the contrast to be observed. Juxtaposing mono-

chromatic and achromatic hues produces the contrast of light–dark.

Saturation contrast is between saturated and desaturated juxtaposed

hues.Simultaneous contrast occurs when the borderline between jux-

taposed hues begins to oscillate, creating an optical illusion.

Diagram showing selection of

Analogous, Triadic, Complementary,

and Split-Complementary colors.

Analogous Selection

Complementary Selection

Triadic Selection

Split-Complementary Selection

fig. 001