Color

In my aimless earlier college days I managed to sneak in some art classes.  One of the classes I took was called Color Theory.  I could not imagine how you could talk and play with color for an entire semester but I soon found out that one could experiment with color for a lifetime.  I had to buy very expensive Color-Aid paper and we used it to analyze color, change colors, make color vibrate, and make color seem transparent.  We learned about hues and tints and how unequal tones in color create uneasiness and distraction.  We also learned how color can anchor other objects.  For example, dark furniture against stark, white walls can make the furniture small and appear to be floating in space.  However, with the appropriate color on the wall the furniture would appear more anchored to the floor.  Colors also have weight.  Our eyes prefer darker colors to be below lighter colors, however, the reverse causes interest and grabs attention.  So I was happy that one of our assignments encouraged us to play with color, but I was unsure how the color would come across on the screen.  The Color Aid paper I used long ago had a matte finish and the texture of a paint swatch.  The paper itself seemed to give the color some more depth.  I recreated a couple of the assignments I remembered from the class and they seem to have the same general affect.  However, working with the color on the screen was harder than the tactile paper though it was quicker to move from color to color.

This first design uses the red and the blue background to enhance the red and the blue in the purple and makes the purple look like it is two different colors even though it is the same exact color.  The reverse can also be done. You can take two different purples and use the red and the blue to drain the reds and blues out of the purple to create the illusion of one purple.  IF you squint your eyes the purples appear different below.

Here are those purple boxes side by side.

This is the same idea using a grayscale.  The grays in the figure below have different tints but placed on different backgrounds they can appear similar.

Here are the original grays.

Another interesting effect of color and design is how you can use color to make an image seem to vibrate.  Contrasting colors in close quarters tend to fight with one another in our eyes.  The result is this...

Finally, I love stripes.  I think there is a kind of serenity and order to striping.  Yet, I find random stripes with various widths to be more intriguing.  It is important to have some sort of harmony in tint, however.  Otherwise the colors may vibrate.