andrea-cart254

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Color


Color has always been a great mystery for me, especially from a design standpoint. (Consequently, much of my better works have been in black and white.) I was never able to fully explain or understand why a certain design piece "worked" based on the color scheme, but I was able to say if it "worked" or not. (The only reason I use the term "works" is because of a certain design teacher I had who never took the time to explain these fundamentals to me, despite my repeated efforts to ask him about it. The only thing he ever told me was, "...it either works or it doesn't. That's all there is."

I guess what is inherent in every human being is a fundamental consensus that certain colors work with others so completely that there is no question to the contrary. I, however, require more than that. I want to know why it works. This would take light-years off the development of projects rather than having to experiment in every color combination that I think may "work".

In any case, the lecture in class with Joey's friend (I can't remember his name and it isn't on the course syllabus), significantly complicated my life. There is so much more I hadn't considered when dealing with color that must now be dealt with. First off, the idea that the human brain can't remember color as well as music is troublesome. No matter how much you would want to engrave a "work" into a person's mind, the colors will still vary from individual to individual. Also, the very important fact that colors are contextual, where one red won't operate on the same level with different colors. Furthermore, the exercise on the color scales made my head hurt. I wasn't able to accomplish it as well as I had hoped. I new it wouldn't be easy from the start, but I still thought it would turn out better. I started off the darker portion of the scale with too much subtlety and then, because of a lack of squares, I jumped too much from dark to light. It was decent but could use improvement.

In any case, I think more study is required into the color theory field, and I believe I will start by picking up a copy of that book by Joseph Albers.

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