Colour Theory - Systematic Colour Part 1

Physical / Physiological / Psychological

We can only see colour when light is there. 
Each colour has a different electromagnetic wavelength. 

We have receptors in the eye:
Rods - allow us to see black, white and grey. 
Cones - allow us to see colour. 

Type 1 - red/orange light
Type 2 - green light 
Type 3 - blue/violet light

Stimulated green cones makes us see green.
Stimulated red cones makes us see red. 
Stimulated red and green cones makes us see yellow. 

Colour is not a physical thing. 
How do we perceive colour? What to we believe to be there?
Colour is affected by the light it is viewed in. 

Names to remember:  Josef Albers, Johannes Itten

Itten's Colour Wheel

Complimentary colours:
- Chromatic colours
- Colour wheel opposites
- Cancel each other out
- Mixing them creates neutrals. 
- Grey and brown are pure neutrals, they are an absence of colour. 

Spectral colour - we cannot differentiate spectral yellow and a combination of red and green. 

Colour Modes
On screen - RGB (the light in digital screens)
Print media - CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black)

Primaries of one colour mode are secondaries of another. 

Subtractive colour 
- Physical
- Print/pigment
- Subtracting colour values - eventually get black. 
- Adding colour values - eventually get white. 

Chromatic Value = Hue, tone + saturation.

Hue - name of the pigment. 
Tone/luminance  - shade (pushing towards black), tint (pushing towards white), tone (pushing towards grey).

Saturation/desaturation - pureness of colour and the overall amount of it. 

Pantone coding system - defining colours.