OUGD404 - Systematic Colours

Colour is a very interesting subject, its all about how we perceive it. One persons view on a colour could be entirely different to the next persons. 
Our eyes have 3 different cones that are receptors for colour, one red, one green and one blue. When we see colours like yellow this is when the cones in our eyes are receiving light through both green and yellow receptors. So you can see how the colour of something could quite easily change from person to person.

We started this task on colours by looking at a basic colour wheel chart, this gives quite a basic representation and understanding of how our eyes mix colours together. The chart shows secondary and tertiary colours.

This colour chart represents colour in an RGB format, which would be used to represent colour on screen in graphic design, the other colour format is CYMK, this stands from cyan yellow and magenta, the K stands for key which is black that alters the tone within the colours.

This is a colour wheel representing CMYK, this would be an example of subtractive colour. The secondary colours on the chart are red blue and green, and in the center is key. This colour wheel also works the other way around and is called additive colour where the secondary colours are CYM and instead of black in the middle this is now white when you mix RGB together.

For the actual studio task we were asked to bring in 15 objects of a colour we were given. I was given yellow as a colour and brought in things ranging from a Pokemon card and Playdough to a Selfridges bag. We were asked to lay out all our objects on the table from the darkest to lightest shade.

For this task we were asked to bring in 15 objects of one colour that varied in shades, as a group we laid out all the colours in order of shade going from lightest to darkest eventually changing in the next colour in the spectrum. The results were interesting seeing all the colours out next to each other as it wasn't immediately obvious which colours were to be place where.

To test the colour of the items we had laid out we used the Pantone testing system, we were asked to select the lightest and dullest items and used the Pantone swatches to select the correct colour which matched with the item.
Using the Pantone books to match colour is really useful in graphic design down to the fact when your printing something you can specify the exact colour you want and know it will get printed like that. Its something that helped create a way to standardise colour.

It was relatively hard trying to identify the exat colour with some of the items, on the other hand though the Selfidges bag was very straight forward as the yellow design was the most basic yellow in the Pantone swatch book.