Universal Principles of Color

INTRODUCTION

“In a flower, in a beetle, every line, every form, every color has arisen from a deep necessity,” wrote the Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp. How different our lives would be without the gorgeous reds and yellows of a sunset, the blinding blues and yellows of a beach holiday, and the effervescent greens of a rain forest. Color is vital to our emotional well-being. Yet, in art and design it also imparts meaning, conveys information, contributes to aesthetics, and induces affective responses in the viewers of artwork.

Arguably the most important thing to understand about color is that it is a perception. Although from our everyday experiences it seems as though color is the property of objects in the world, we see color with our brains ...