Going forward in class, we will be exploring and experimenting with color when creating graphic designs. As an art student, I have learned about color in many aspects, and how different hue’s, tones, and saturations can read differently to an audience. Color can become a vital part of conveying the intended message of the design, and when used correctly can offer more depth than a grayscale image. In the reading Graphic Design: The New Basics by Ellen Lupton, the author begins by talking about this vital impact color can have on an audience, and how an artist can manipulate the aspects of color such as hue, intensity, value, shade, tint, and saturation. We are also introduced to primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors, complementary colors, and analogous colors, which as a design major I’ve learned a lot about over the years in my work with design/tech theater, particularly in lighting and set design. Color is my favorite thing to work with in theater because it’s so important in conveying the themes or emotions. In my own art I frequently experiment with using the primary color sources and complementary colors when designing my art work. In the reading Guide to Graphic Design: Color, we learn about the compositional principles of color design and in particular the important of balance within color, which I had never thought of before experiencing this first hand when putting my frog translation into color. I noticed how even if you choose the best three color options of the group, if you weren’t thoughtful about how you layered them, the balance of the color design was off, and it didn’t look quite right. Playing with the composition of color to find balance created a nicer looking design over all, so this was really interesting to read about. In the reading Additive vs. Subtractive Color, we learned about working with color systems and the difference between additive and subtractive color. When we do activities such as painting or printing, we are conducting a subtractive color method, because we are starting with white, and the result is getting darker. In an additive color system it’s just the opposite, beginning black, and removing the unwanted colors to stream through the one you do like, this occurs during processes like being on a computerized color wheel and choosing colors. I knew about this before reading, and noticed we had our own experience with additive color when playing with the color gradient when we used the Adobe color tool.
