The Science Behind Color – Part One

Color is one of the most important aspects of any design plan. In fact, many people plan entire rooms around pieces that are a certain color. Today, Royalty Finishes is going to explore the science behind color, the first in a two-part blog series.

Basic Color Theory

Color theory is historically broken up into three groups: the color wheel, harmonious colors, and context. The human eye is capable of distinguishing about 10 millions different colors, each with subtle differences in a varying scale. This theory is how the eye perceives colors.

The Color Wheel

The color wheel is split into three different sections:

• Primary Colors – Red, blue and green are considering primaries. Think of primary colors as the building blocks. No other pigment can be mixed to create these hues and every other shade is derived from them.
• Secondary Colors – When primary colors are mixed, secondary colors are created. Red and yellow creates orange, blue and yellow makes green, and blue and red produces purple.
• Tertiary Colors – Colors are kind of like genetics…you mix certain colors enough to dilute them into something uniquely different. These colors appear when a primary and a secondary color are combined, such as blue-green or red-orange.

Harmonious Colors

This section is also split up, but into only two categories:

• Analogous Colors – These colors are in the same color family, but build on different shades. An example would be decorating a room in royal blue with touches of blue-green and deep blue.
• Complementary Colors – Although in different color families, some shades work very well together. For instance, a purple wall would really stand out with accents in different shades of green. Complementary colors are usually found on the opposite side of a color wheel. The best example is to think of the paint color swatch combinations you see at home improvement stores…they’re suggesting colors to really make your room pop!

Context

This topic is more scientific than the other two mentioned. However, color context is how your eye perceives different hues. Just as an example, the dots in the center of the graphic are the exact same size, but your eye doesn’t see it that way. Color can be just as tricky!

Which center circle is larger?

Join us again next week as we dive off into the second part of our science behind color series!