Week 6, MM1B03, McMaster University
Colour
& Typography
From L.A. White Elements of Graphic Design
L. Holtzsch, Understanding Colour
R. Landa, Elements of Graphic Design
and Internet Sources

Colour as design component

Hues are pure colours like red, yellow, blue
•
Tints are hue + white, reducing saturation.
•
Shades are hue + black, reducing saturation.
•
Tones are hue + grey, reducing saturation.
•
Value is the lightness or darkness of a colour
•
Saturation the the brightness/dullness.
•

Colour
Complementary Analogous Triadic
Colours Colours Harmonies
are Opposites are next to each are three colours
on the other on the that are
Colour Wheel Colour Wheel equidistant

Colour
Monochromatic Colour
is a single hue with tints and shades.

Colours + Associations
According to Swiss psychologist Max Luesche,
colours have particular associations, tempered by
context and application.
Blue is dignified • Violet is Meditative
•
Green is persistent • Black is Surrender
•
Red is Assertive • Gray is a Barrier
•
Brown is Passive
•

Colour Space
RGB Model CMYK Model
Additive Colour. Subtractive Colour.
White Light by White created
adding Red Green when no ink is
and Blue. added.

Kundalini Yoga
Colours associated with power centres in the body.

Colour Composition
• Colours that are used together create a
colour composition: a group of colours
meant to be sensed as a whole.
A group of colours selected for use
•
together is called a palette, a colourway,
a colour story, depending on the
industry or design discipline.

Ground and Carried Colours
• The background of a colour composition is
its ground.
Colours laid on a ground are carried colours.
•
Ground established the visual reference
•
point for carried colours and is determined
by composition not by colour.
Visual cues and the arrangement of forms
•
determine which parts of a composition are
image or pattern and which part is
understood as background.

What is the
ground
colour of this
painting?
What is the
ground
colour of the
subject
depicted?

Ground and Graphic Quality
• Graphic quality is the “readability” of a
composition, or how clearly images can be
seen against their background.
• Dierences in value -- contrasts between light
and dark -- separate images from their
background. Black+white most value contrast.
• High contrast images are not always desirable.

Scale of design
• The distance from which something is
experienced is an important factor in design. ie
magazine vs wallpaper vs highway billboards.
• In graphic design, “image” is a picture, “pattern”
is an image or motif repeated against a ground.
• Optical mixes result when images or motifs
converge to create a new colour or texture.
• Whether a design is seen as an image, pattern,
or texture depends on the scale of its design
elements relative to viewing distance.

Colour printing as example
• Four-colour
commercial
printing is
achieved through
optical mixing.
• Dots of ink on
paper merge in
the eye to create
a colour image.

Vibration
• Vibration occurs strongly with complementary
colours.
• The struggle to focus on edge, added to the
struggle to reach equilibrium can be a tough
visual experience.
• Vibration can also result from poor scale in a
pattern relative to viewing distance. “Op art” is
an aesthetic experiment in vibration causing
visual distortion.

Transparency and Illusion
• True transparency can be illustrated by the fact
that coee in a pot is very dark but when spilled
in a saucer is light coloured. Josef Albers
describes this as “volume colour.”
• Perceptual transparency is the phenonmenon of
seeing one surface behind another.
• When a small portion of a transparent surface is
observed, neither the surface colour, nor the
fusion colour is perceived, but only the colour
resulting from the fusion of that of the
transparent surface and that of the background.

Transparency and Illusion

Spacial Eects of Colour
An object can be made to appear larger, smaller,
nearer, or farther away by making change in its
hue value or saturation. In general:
• Warm colours advance relative to cool ones.
• Brilliant colours advance relative to muted ones.
• Objects in light colours appear larger than the
same objects in dark colours.

Spacial Eects
All of the circles are the same size,
but the bright yellow circle appears
to be larger because it is a light
hue that is highly saturated.
The yellow also appears to be
closer, or expanding, to the viewer
than the other colors.

Spacial Eects
The middle blue is pushed to look like
two dierent blues depending on the
background color.

Typography
from R. Landa, Elements of Graphic Design
and Internet Sources

Typography Coursepack pages 81-89
Nomenclature
• Type Family: Weight, Width, Elaboration
• The Typographic Font: Capitals, Lower
Case, Small Caps, Ligatures, Dipthongs,
Swashes, etc.
Letterform Terms: Vertical Metrics, serifs,
•
counters, stems, spines, etc.
Type Specifications: point size, leading,
•
style elements, alignment.
Classifications: Roman, Serif, San Serif,
•
Italic, Script etc.

Typography
Vertical Heights

Typography Coursepack pages 97-98
Spacing
Letterspacing: The space between letters.
•
Wordspacing: Space between words.
•
Leading: Space between lines of type.
•
Kerning: the process of adding space
•
between letter.
Tracking: adding space between letters on
•
a more universal level.
One should always judge letterspacing
•
optically.

Typography Coursepack pages 110 - 114
Designing with Type
As a designer, one must concentrate on more
than just the literal meaning of words. These
things must also be considered:
Type as form.
•
Type as a direct message — as primary meaning.
•
The secondary meaning (connotation).
•
Graphic impact.
•