Lesson Tasks (Color Theory)

Task 4.1

Question 1

1. Having watched the video of Nigel French – describe, in your own words, what each of these colour systems means: RGB and CMYK. Add visuals to show the difference.

RGB:
Has three color channels that stands for Red, Green, Blue. Computer monitors and digital cameras are displayed in RGB.
Each channel is measured by brightness of a scale from 0 to 255. RBG is mostly used in digital artwork, not for printing.

CMYK:
Has four channels that stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black which is called ”key” due to black being a combination of the color inks.
Color light is measured by using ink percentages on a scale from 1-100. The colors get a little more dull then with RBG, due to the old technology of most printers. CMYK is used for printing designs.

2. Make use of Adobe Colour and develop four different colour schemes. Please hand in screenshots of your schemes.

Monochromatic:

Complementary:

Tetrad:

Analogous:

Question 2

Use a colour photo of your choice and create the following colour effects, using Photoshop. You should hand in four separate works of the same photo with the following effects:

• Create a fluorescent duotone using a Gradient Map adjustment layer.
• Apply a monochrome look (choose a different colour than black/greyscale).
• Split toning of the image (note that the tool in Photoshop for ‘Split Toning’ was changed to ‘Color Gradient’).
• Freestyle: Create a colour effect of your choice.

Question 3

Design a book cover for one of the titles below. You need to choose one of the colour schemes and explain why you chose this scheme. For instance: ‘The Secret Garden’ by Frances Hodgson Burnett could be created using secondary colours to express naivety, honesty and harmony.

• ‘Lord of the flies’ by William Golding.
• ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins.
• ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald Dahl.

Color Scheme:

Result:

I used a triad color scheme, with gold yellow as my primary color and brown as headline color. I took a lot of inspiration from the gold ticket you see in the movie, and the bright color might represent happiness and joy. The brown chocolate color explains itself, since the plot is happening in a chocolate factory. The last color I used was purple. This color makes the yellow pop a lot more, and helps draw attention. It is also a connection with the purple of Willy Wonka’s dress. Since this book is a child book, I liked having a simple design and mostly bright colors. I used a little different shades of the color scheme so it would fit a little better together.