Colour Publication 500 words

Subjective Colour

Subjective colour is the idea in which each person having their own personal perception of colour harmonies. This was first noticed by Johanesse Itten, where his students questioned his array of preset colour combinations when they where told to create paintings with the said ‘harmonious’ colours; they said “We all think that the combinations that you assigned are not harmonious”. 

Some people will deem certain colour combinations to be harmonious or not depending on their preferences and what they are used to or ‘know’ as harmonious colours.Looking at three quite distinct shops (Home Sense, John Lewis and Zara Home, subjective colour was definitely applied; in the way the three shops layout their home furniture and their use of colour schemes and combinations. 

Home Sense set their furniture is themes (which has corresponding colour combinations to it e.g. contem- porary (muted dark colours). It was also found that they often combine themes together in order to create a harmony between the colours, such as contemporary and shabby chic Through the observation, it was found that Home Sense often mixed warm and cold colours within the same hue spectrum with a strong dark shade of the complementary colours of the dominating colours, which is one way of creating a harmonious colour combination. Meanwhile, from the observation done in John Lewis, there was a consistent colour combination used throughout the shop floor which matches consistently around the format of furnitures. This makes the overall colour combinations tion create consistency and fluidity when a shopper walks through the shop. John Lewis has a slightly different way of creating colour combinations, in which they only subtly use the complementary contrasting colour by mostly using muted shades of that complementary colour. This may be in order to suit the mood they are trying to create in the entire shop floor which corresponds to the style of the furniture they are selling.

In contrast Zara Home opt to seperate each hues in different section sof the shop. ONe corner could be full of shades and tints of green while the opposite corner can be seen with blue tints and shades. Perhaps this is how Zara Home see harmonising colours in terms of being in the same hue spectrum in order to create a satifying atmosphere as the colurs often come in a gradient effect. All three shops view harmonising colours differently and this cna be due to thier target customers or the image of their brand, perhaps Home Sense opt to be more playful with their combinations due to their family friendly and approchable iamge, whilst the other two used a more

balanced colour scheme to show a more classy and sophisticated image and brand identity. Subjective colour can be very different depnding on person to person and brand to brand as we all have unqiue experiences and knowledge that we learnt and grew up with. Each brand may have their own subjective collour as they have their own cusotmer circle and people that they specifically target to buy and use their products and hope for the sutomers to relate to their product and identity with it.

Complementary Contrast

In Itten’s book ‘The Art of Color’ complementary colours were described to be colours which “incite [each] other to maximum vividness when adjacent’ and annihilate each other, to grey-black, when mixed…”. Complementary colours are also colours which are diagonally adjacent to each other in the colour wheel. In addition, colours could also be balanced by its complementary which is important when creating visual practical work. Complementary colours are also unique as some complementary colours such as yellow/violet are of extreme light and dark contrast, red-orange/blue-green are of cold-warm contrast and red/green have the same brilliance. 

Using the colour green (emerald), an experiment was conducted around the idea of complementary colours. Along with green’s complementary colour red, other colours where also incorporated in order to see a wide range of colour combinations which may also complementary and work to incite maximum or similar vividness with the colour. Over the course of the experiment, it was found that pink worked in a similar way as red, where it incited similar brightness of each colour. This may due to pink being a colour that harmonise with red and is next to it on the colour wheel, which may work as a complementary contrast with green. Combinations such as red/blue weren’t as successful as red turned out to be a more prominent colour and when paired with blue, blue became more muted. Perhaps, this is due to red and blue being primary colours and aren’t diagonally adjacent with each other in the colour wheel and are instead hues that are best when on it’s own or have a maximised effect when with it’s own complementary colour. 

Contrast of Temperature

According to Johannes Itten's book 'The Art of Colour' he explained the differences between cold and warm contrasts. Itten explained the different psychological effects warm and cold colours have on people by doing an experiment where he situated people in a blue-green room and a red-orange room. He found that people tended to feel a difference of 5-7 degrees between the rooms, where people started to feel colder in the room with cold colours and vice versa. This points out the effect colours have on humans effectively and also shows how blue-green (colder colours) can slow down circulation. Not only that, but contrast of temperature can also suggest distance e.g. in landscapes as distant objects can seem colder due to the constant air around, which shows the versatility of cold and warm colours. 

In the colour wheel we can see that the red-orange pole is the warmest and the blue-green in the coldest, however the line between what is cold and what is warm can become ambiguous as although the two opposite pole are warm and cold the hues in between them can either be cold or warm as they are contrasted with warm and cold tones.

In this experiment, a route was created (from LAU to Liberty Park; Morrison’s being the centre point), in order to investigate cold and warm colours around the city of Leeds. Warm colours where to be investigated from LAU to Morrison’s, whilst cold colours from Morrison’s to Liberty Park. After collating evidence and images, their most of the colours found form LAU to Morrison’s where indeed warm colours which can elicit a fresher and livelier mood; this could also be due to the area being a University area, bright colours were more prominent to create the right atmosphere for students. On the other hand, from Morrison’s to Liberty Park most colours around where colder. The colours gave the are a very chill and calm atmosphere with the shades and tones of blue-green and dark blue complementing each other (especially the area from nation of Shopkeepers to the Nelson Mandela Gardens, where an array of pubs and restaurants lined up). This has a completely different atmosphere to where LAU is, though they are only around 15 mins. away. Though some outliers can be found in the experiment where some shade and tones could be classified as a warmer or colder colour.