What is Color?
Color is the visual perception of the light reflection that illuminates the surfaces and bounces off the cone cells of our retina.
There are many meanings for color depending on the logical structure of each color theory. For a basic knowledge, color theory can be divided into the following groups of definitions:
- The color wheel
- The harmony of color
- Color Context
- Meaning of colors
Color translates into American English as color and British English as color.
Overlapping two or more different colored films is called iridescence.
The color wheel
The color wheel , color circle or color wheel in English, is the traditional field of art and is based on the 3 primary colors: red, yellow and blue.
Since the first ‘color wheel’ or circular color diagram created in the year 1666 by Isaac Newton, new formats and theories about color have continued to emerge by scientists and artists.
Theoretically, a color circle is considered any circle that has pure pigments in logically ordered shades.
There are 3 basic types of color wheel:
- Primary colors: red, yellow and blue.
- Secondary colors: 3 primary colors + green, orange and violet (result of mixing primary colors).
- Tertiary colors: Covers the previous colors + orange yellow, orange red, violet red, violet blue, greenish blue and greenish yellow (result of mixing a primary with a secondary color).
The harmony of color
The harmony of a color is achieved by applying analogous colors or complementary colors according to a color wheel.
The analogous colors are groups of 3 and a color along with those found on both sides on a color wheel 12 colors.
The complementary colors are two colors that are in opposition to the color chosen on the color wheel.
Color Context
In color theory, the context of color is the study of the behavior of color in relation to other colors and their shapes.
Meaning of colors
The meaning of colors has been popularized by studies in psychology and its application in marketing. Some of the meanings associated with some of the most used colors are:
- Red: passion, violence, fire, seduction, power, active.
- Yellow: harmony, wisdom, agility, bright.
- Blue: stability, confidence, masculine, rationality.
- Orange: happiness, enthusiasm, creativity, success.
- Green: nature, growth, fertility, money, outdoors.
- Violet: powerful, ambitious, mysterious, dignity, rich.
- Pink: feminine, romance, innocence, youthful.
- Black: power, luxury, strong emotions, knowledge, sophisticated.
