Colour Theory and Colour Application
Three properties
Hue is the family name (red, blue-green). Value is lightness or darkness. Chroma/intensity/saturation is purity. Adding white gives a tint, black a shade, grey or a complement a tone. A tint is higher in value and usually lower in chroma than the pure hue.
Colour systems
Pigment mixing is subtractive: the traditional painter's primaries are red, yellow and blue, giving secondaries orange, green, violet. Additive mixing is light: red, green and blue primaries give cyan, magenta, yellow, and all three give white. Four-colour printing uses cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK).
Schemes
- Monochromatic – one hue, varied value and chroma.
- Analogous – neighbours on the wheel; harmonious, low tension.
- Complementary – opposites; maximum contrast, vibrant, and muddy if mixed in equal quantity.
- Split-complementary – a hue plus the two neighbours of its opposite; strong but gentler.
- Triadic / tetradic – three or four evenly spaced hues; lively but need one dominant. Warm hues (reds, oranges, yellows) advance; cool hues (blues, greens) recede.
Worked example
A Bihu dance poster: reasoning - the brief needs energy and night-time festivity. Choose a dominant warm analogous range (yellow-orange to red-violet) for the dancers, then place a small area of its complement, blue-green, on one garment. Small area plus full saturation gives high simultaneous contrast without muddying; the dark background raises value contrast so the pale headline stays legible.
Traps that cost marks
Mixing complements in equal parts and expecting brilliance; confusing value with saturation; quoting RGB primaries for paint; forgetting that a colour changes appearance against different neighbours (simultaneous contrast, Chevreul); using equal areas of all scheme colours and destroying hierarchy.