Hello and welcome to this beginner's guide series to graphic design.
From what graphic design is, skills to be a graphic designer, design theory, education you need, equipment you need to the graphic design portfolio and interview advice.
This series is for anyone at any level.
So if you're interested in graphic design and considering becoming a graphic designer.
join me as I discuss series of graphic design topics.
So the graphic part of graphic design is made up of visual elements, the building blocks of design.
Through the harness of our artistic expression we choose these
visual elements and arrange them on a surface in a layout to convey an idea.
The basic visual elements that combine to create graphic design include the following:
Line, colour, shape, texture, space, form and typography.
Whatever work you produce be it for a magazine a poster a website or advertisement, these visual elements will play a part in your design.
In this video I'm going to discuss the second key visual and discuss colour as a visual element in graphic design.
In this video I will be referring to some visual diagrams
if you wish to follow along you can download the PDF document that
accompanies this series, link is in the description. So colour plays one of the
biggest roles in graphic design, it can give emphasis
it can be used as a mechanism of the organization, it can create impact and
create a specific look and feel in a piece of graphic design work.
When working with colour it helps to have a good knowledge of colour theory.
Colour theory provides us with practical guidance to help us mix colours and
create interesting colour combinations and it all starts with the colour wheel.
The colour wheel is a really useful tool designed to help us choose colours that work well together.
So this here is the red, yellow, blue colour model which consists of 12 colours
Now if we jump onto the Adobe colour website we can see this colour wheel
as more of a spectrum. This is an amazing resource to explore and create colour schemes.
The address for this website is color.adobe.com.
I'll be referring to this website later in this episode but for now to help explain
colour theory I'll use this simple example. If you want to take a closer
look at this color wheel and the spectrum
you can find them in the downloadable PDF, link is in the description.
So the colour wheel consists of primary colors, secondary colors and tertiary colours
and these can be split into warm and cool colours. So let's take a look at each of these.
So first is primary colours. Primary colours make up the basis for the colour wheel
here they are red, yellow and blue.
Next are the secondary colours. Secondary colours are made by mixing equal portions of the primary colours, these create green, orange and purple.
Next are the tertiary colours. Tertiary colours are made by mixing a primary colour
with a neighboring secondary colour, for example if we mix the yellow with
the orange we get a yellow orange colour in between. If we continue to mix the
primary and neighbouring colours, we fill the gaps and get the remaining tertiary colours.
Now if we separate the colour wheel we get two categories, warm and cool colours.
On the right we have the warm colours, these incorporate the red, violet colours through to yellow.
On the left we have cool colours, these incorporate the colours yellow through to indigo.
So that completes the colour wheel. Now this is a really useful tool designed to help
us choose color schemes. To help us choose interesting colour combinations
that have harmony together or create contrast there are some colour rules we can explore.
These colour rules are referred to as:
monochromatic colours, analogous colours, complementary colours and triadic colours.
So first we have monochromatic colours. Monochromatic colours are shades and tints of the same colour.
The monochromatic colour scheme is typically balance and easy on the eye.
Now if we jump onto the Adobe color website at color.adobe.com we can see
some of these colour rules on the left
if I click on monochromatic, it will generate a monochromatic colour scheme below.
Now if I click and drag the middle colour circle in the spectrum and toggle the other
it will generate new schemes.
Next we have analogous colours. Analogous colours are those found close to each other on the colour wheel.
Analogous colours typically always work well together since they have similar origins.
Like the monochromatic colors they are
also balance but typically more interesting as these colours have more contrast.
This time on the Adobe colour website if I click on Analogous it will
generate an analogous color scheme. If I click and drag the middle circle
it will generate new schemes. Notice all the colours are similar to each other.
Next we have complementary colours. Complementary colours are those found on opposite ends of the colour wheel.
Complementary colors have high contrast
which produce vibrant exciting colour schemes, as implied complementary colors
enhance each other and typically always work well together.
Back on the Adobe colour website if I click on complementary it will generate
a complementary colour scheme. If I click and drag the middle circle
it will generate new schemes.
Finally we have Triadic colours.
Triadic colours are those spaced equally on the colour wheel.
Triadic colours typically produce vibrant effects.
Back on the Adobe colour website if I click on triadic
it will generate a triadic color scheme. If I click and drag the middle circle
it will generate new schemes.
So those are some rules you can keep in mind when
exploring colours. So that is the second key visual element in graphic design.
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So the next visual element is 'Shape' in the next video I'm going to be talking
about shape as a visual element in graphic design.
See you in the next video!