Week-10

Color Theory!!! 

(Miscellaneous) 

Hey Guys! I hope everyone's weeks went well! For our readers in school, good luck with the beginnings of your classes! My school started on Thursday, and even though I've only been back for two days; I'm exhausted! Summer was fun, but I'm hopeful, the new school year will bring a lot of new experiences and lessons! So in today's blog post, we'll be chatting about color theory! I recently heard about color theory in vague detail, so I decided to explore it more in-depth and share my findings with you all! 

The internet defines color theory as the science and art of color! My research goes on to inform us that color theory is the study of how colors interact and affect our perception. It combines the components of science and art, while exploring how colors mix and contrast. More specifically, how these interactions between colors affect our psychological perception of colors. 

Let's go more in-depth! 

There are a few key concepts that go with color theory! 

Color Wheel: A visual representation of colors. These colors are divided into primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. More on that, later.

Primary Colors: These colors consist of red, yellow, and blue. Often they are considered the base colors. We can mix these colors together to create new colors. For instance, red and blue can be combined to create purple.

Secondary Colors: These colors consist of orange, green, and purple. They're basically any colors that can be created by mixing two primary colors.

Tertiary Colors: Colors that are created by mixing primary and secondary colors together. This includes mixing red and orange together or blue and purple together.

Color Schemes: These are color combinations that mix together well. This definition probably confused me the most. So let's break this down!

    - Simply Put: Foundation for creating visually appealing designs. 

    - There are three types of color schemes (complementary, analogous, triadic, and monochromatic)

    - Monochromatic: Uses variations of a single color, including tints, tones, and shades of a specific color. This creates a sense of elegance and unity. An example of this can be different shades of blue, from light sky blue to dark indigo. 

    - Tip for Monochromatic: The root word mono means one or single. A monochromatic color scheme uses different variations of a single color. 

    - Analogous: This uses three colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. This makes it look cohesive like a rainbow. An example might be blue, green, and yellow-green.   

    - Complementary: This uses two colors that are OPPOSITE of each other on the color wheel. This creates high contrast and it's visually appealing. And example might be red and green, orange and blue, or purple and yellow. Complete polar opposites; especially with the last one, the darker colors with the lighter colors. 

    - Triadic Color Scheme: This particular one uses THREE colors that are evenly spaced apart on the color wheel. If you refer to the color wheel, check out the colors; red, yellow, and blue. These colors are evenly spaced apart and are part of the triadic color scheme. 

   - Tip for the Triadic Color Scheme: You can remember this color scheme, because of the root word; tri. Remember, a triadic color scheme uses three colors that are evenly spaced apart from each other on the color wheel. Tri is three, so three colors. 

Now that, we've gone in depth on color scheme; which in my opinion is probably the most complex term, we'll go back to our key concepts of color theory. So our last concept is color psychology:

Color Psychology: The study of how colors evoke emotions and reactions.

To me color psychology, is what ties all these concepts together. In essence, color theory is how we perceive colors and while the color wheel, the primary to tertiary colors, the color scheme are all practical and important, the color psychology is what ties the knot together. 

So you may be wondering; how do these key concepts connect to color theory? Well think of color theory as a story. The color wheel is the structure; it's where everything builds upon. The primary, secondary, and tertiary colors are the starting points. While the color schemes are the practical applications. Finally, color psychology adds depth to understanding the impact of color.

We can use all these concepts and apply them into color theory by incorporating them into real-life jobs.

1) Art: The most obvious job where this would be applied is art. Artist use color theory to create visually and emotionally appealing artwork. This how artists can connect with their viewers. 

2) Design: Graphic, interior, and product designers all apply color theory to create appealing and effective designs. Their purpose is to attract people to their works. For instance, a product designer will have to create visually appealing pieces to successfully market their product. Even if you market the world's coolest watch with a thousand features, no one will want to buy it if it's plain and dirty. That's why product designer use color theory to create emotionally and visually appealing designs. Another application is in interior design. So many people are super conscious of what they're houses look like. Some home renovators will spend months and even years planning the perfect home because the color scheme and the color theory all has to look cohesive and elegant. 

3) Marketing: The use of color theory in marketing is similar to how I explained the use of color theory in product design. Marketers use colors to influence consumer behavior. That's why the market changes with the new trends and styles in the market. 

4) Fashion: This is another obvious use, fashion. Fashion designers need to create pieces that people would be proud to wear. That means designing clothes that are in style and are popular. Lots of people are conscious of what they wear, so that's why color theory plays such an important role in fashion. 

So that's a in-depth look on color theory! The concepts behind it and the applications of color theory! If you 'd like a more clear explanation with pictures, be sure to check out my post on medium: https://medium.com/@shivali.patra/dive-into-color-theory-a-beginners-guide-to-visual-harmony-27c3774e500b

I hope you enjoyed my blog post this week! Make sure to comment your thoughts on this week's post; especially if you're an artist, or anyone who actively uses color theory! I'd love to hear your thoughts or any tips. If you're not an artist or anyone who actively uses color theory, don't worry! You can still comment your thoughts, questions, ideas, and tips. Finally, contact me on our Contact Us, page, if you'd like to be interviewed! Thanks for your support everyone! 

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.Faces of Silicon Valley News!~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Blog Post: Stay tuned for next week's blog posts! 

Community Stories: I recently had another interview, and I'll be glad to post it as soon as the month of September begins! We've already had our monthly interview for August, so September's interview will be posted shortly in September.