Color Theory

One of the fundamentals classes that everyone at my school has to take is Color Theory. From a non-designer’s standpoint, learning about color doesn’t sound all that exciting. I personally found it to be a very useful class, if anything learning about how color in a design, whether it be web or interior, can affect a person’s mood.

Oddly enough while I was in the course, Smashing Magazine did a 3-part segment on Color Theory for Designers, which only emphasized what I was learning in my class.

• Color Theory for Designers, Part 1: The Meaning of Color
• Color Theory for Designers, Part 2: Understanding Concepts And Terminology
• Color Theory for Designers, Part 3: Creating Your Own Color Palettes

In this class we learned about a different color concept each week. We were given a few templates to create our own compositions and paint them in the concept we learned. We also did a few Albers Color Studies. At the end of the quarter we compiled all our work into a final notebook.

In addition to that we were also to keep a color journal in which we would find 2-3 images outside of class that represented the concept we learned that week. They could be either images we took or images we found.

With both the journal and the notebook we had to take at least 3 color samples from the image, match them up with the colors in our Color Aid pack, and put the corresponding chip colors underneath the composition/image.

• FS103 Color Studies
• FS103 Color Journal

After taking this class, I definitely see why it’s a required course. I think no matter what school you go to everyone should be required to take a Color Theory class. Color plays such a big part in our everyday lives. We don’t live in black and white. 😉