The Fundamentals of Understanding Color Theory

If you are a designer, you might know the importance of understanding more about the color wheel, and how to use colors, match them together, which is hot ,and which is cool to be able to choose the right color to achieve your goal.

Furthermore understanding the chemistry of colors is important not just for you –as a designer- but also for artists, marketers, and brand makers, as colors are one of the most influential elements. It founded that human Actions, feelings are affected by colors, otherwise, color theory hasn’t been invented. So, Let me make it clear for you. The color theory made up of 3 parts :

1.   Color wheel

2.   Color harmony

3.   And context to tell you how to use colors

The top-secret here is "if you understand color wheel and color wheel theory, then you will understand the harmony. and all of those parts I'll explain by the next lines so bring your notebook, cup of tea, and let's dig deep into it!

What you will learn from this article?

1.   What's the color wheel?

2.   What’s color wheel theory?

3.   How to use the adobe color wheel?

Color Wheel

It's about a color circle that was created by newton in 1666 to show the relations between colors by mapping the first circular diagram of colors.

The color wheel consist of 3 types of colors:

1.   Primary colors: Red, Yellow and blue which we can’t get by mixing colors or formatting them.

2.   Secondary colors: Green, orange, and purple which we get by mixing the primary ones.

3.   Tertiary colors: we get it by mixing primary colors with secondary ones. 

At the end of this part, you have to know that there are two types of color wheels. the first one, called RYB which is based on the primary colors "Red-Yellow-Blue" and that type is almost used by artists. On the other hand, there is the RGB color wheel, which is based on "Red-Green-Blue" besides mixing light like TV, and that type is almost used by designers which means you can feel free to use it.

What Is The Color Wheel Theory?

Understanding the color wheel theory is as important as understanding the theory of colors, so let's begin.

The first rule is that "the primary colors are more powerful than other colors”. Just think of any bright and powerful design, you will find yellow, red, and blue come up in your mind immediately. 

The second rule is that “the opposite colors on the wheel always works fine”. Just try to use Green with Red and blue with Orange, it will appear more powerful than when they apart.

The third rule is that “although the tertiary colors are less effective than primary and secondary, they are the perfect colors which we see in our daily life” So don’t miss them.

The last rule is that the color wheel contains warm colors "from yellow to red" and cool colors like greens when we use it against a blue background. Notice that identifying which type of colors you will use is your first step to achieve the design goal.

How to use Adobe Color to perfect your design?

It's a browser-based application that offers great tools to designers to make choosing colors easier. You will find a huge color wheel to choose the base color you need for your design then go to the options – that adobe color offers- to choose the colors that match with the base one you choose as the options have a list of colors depending on the harmony rules". Now, let’s see how to use it.

Choose your theme: as we said before, you have to choose the base color from the wheel then you will go to the list of harmony colors that were selected.

Create your design: you can create your design from scratch or you can use images and graphics the program offers. You can also test the color you chose or see how people who suffer from color blindness will see your design. Besides the most useful option where there is an alert when there is a mistake. On the other hand, you can use the "Explore option" as you will find images and designs which you can edit and use, Besides the "Trends option" which you find real images and graphics you can also use. At the end of this part, don’t hesitate to use adobe color and tell us about your first experience.

Conclusion

Using a color wheel and understanding color wheel theory is your key to use adobe color or any other program to create your design. Hope it was useful and see you soon!