Color+in+Design

[|Color Trends] What's New? [|Orange] [|Color Basics]

Color Wheel The colors chart colors are derived from red, yellow, and blue, the primary colors. Combine two primaries to get the secondary colors, orange, green, and violet. Tertiary colors are also referred to as intermediate colors and are made by combining a primary color and the secondary color next to the primary.

Color Meanings media type="youtube" key="masWXCvFYZA" height="344" width="425"

[|What's Your Color Personality?]

You're probably attracted to colors not only for their specific hue -- red, blue-green, orange -- but also for particular **values** of those hues, such as pink, teal, or terra-cotta, for example.
 * [[image:b81b.jpg width="260" height="160" align="right"]]Value**
 * Value** refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. A hue's value becomes lighter with the addition of white; black or umber (a blackish brown) darkens the value. Sky blue and robin's-egg blue are light values of blue, while navy and cobalt are dark values.
 * Balance with Accents:** Light and medium values live most comfortably with each other, but to keep a light-value scheme from becoming boring, include an accent of a darker value. In a room decorated in light blue and light yellow, for example, a touch of navy blue or cobalt blue will ground the scheme and give it depth.

Another aspect of any color is its intensity or saturation. The **pure hue** represents the most intense or most saturated expression of a color. Adding the hue's complement will gray or muddy the color so that it's softer, more muted, and less intense.
 * Intensity**[[image:intdec.jpg width="161" height="153" align="right"]]
 * Lower-intensity colors** generally create a calm, restrained mood that's subtle and serene.
 * Higher-intensity** (more saturated) colors generate more energy and can feel dynamic or richly elegant, depending on the specific colors and the style of your furnishings.
 * Equal Partners:** The key to successful color scheming is **balance**. Strong colors call for strong partners. This applies to both value and intensity. Navy blue walls, for example, demand an equally intense yellow or red to create a balanced scheme.
 * Keep intensities equal or nearly equal.** A saturated red calls for an intense green or yellow-green as a partner; a muted red-orange of lower intensity requires an equally muted yellow-green. Pairing colors of different intensities often creates a feeling of being out of balance.

Stir Emotions
 * [[image:analogous.jpg width="210" height="223" align="right"]]Warm and Cool**
 * The **color wheel** also helps you identify warm and cool hues.
 * Half of the color wheel, from red to yellow-green, is considered **warm**, stimulating, and advancing. Such a description reflects emotional associations (the sun looks yellow, and fire is orange and red, for example), but it has a basis in physiology: The eye can't bring the red and purple ends of the spectrum into focus at the same time, so it perceives red to be nearer or advancing.
 * The other half of the wheel is described as **cool**; these colors generally appear to recede. Thus a small room may benefit from visually opening up the walls with a cool, or receding, paint color such as blue, green, or purple.
 * **//TIP://** A **warm** color scheme needs a dollop of a cool hue to feel well-rounded and complete; think of a green plant in a yellow room.
 * **//TIP://** A **cool** scheme needs a jolt of warmth to liven it up; thus a shot of red will perk up a room done in blue and white.
 * **Green and purple** may seem to either advance **//or//** recede, depending on the context; for that reason, some interior designers consider them neutrals that can go with any color.