Understanding Color Theory: Basics, Components, and Models

Colors are perception. Every one of us views colors differently. What I call bright red might be a few degrees different from your bright red.

Perception of Colors and Shades of Red

That’s why designers and artists face a lot of confusion when working with colors. Even with an established vocabulary, things can often be up for debate. With this color theory guide, we aim to clarify concepts.

In this multi-part series, we dedicate our first discussion to understanding the basics of color theory in graphic design. We’ll cover major components of color composition and discuss various color models for digital and print design.

Let’s begin.

What is color theory?

Color theory is the study of how colors work together. Colors have inherent characters, psychological properties, and cultural associations that affect how viewers perceive and connect with colors. Understanding these relationships helps designers create perfect color combinations and schemes to further their brand design goals.

The Psychology of Color Blue

Who came up with color theory?

Sir Isaac Newton invented color theory right around the time he invented the color wheel — in 1666. During his experiments, he used a prism to split white light and got a vibrant spectrum of 7 unique colors, the colors we see in the rainbow:

Color Rainbow

He arranged them around a disk and we call it the color wheel.

The Color Wheel

Newton also discovered that he could classify the colors in the wheel into primary and secondary colors.

Primary Colors

Primary colors: These are red, blue, and yellow. Why are they ‘primary’? Because he realized that they create the perfect white light of the sun when combined. So they are the primary colors of the light.

Secondary Colors

Secondary colors: These are green, orange, and purple. You get these colors by mixing two primary colors. Red and blue get you purple. Blue and yellow beget green. Red and yellow create orange.

Tertiary Colors

Tertiary colors: When you mix primary and secondary colors, you get tertiary color combinations. Blue-green and orange-red etc. are popular examples.

Important to note: Primary colors will change from one color model to the next depending on whether you create a print or digital design. But more on that in a bit.

Components of Color

Color components refer to the visual characteristics of the color about how light, dark, or vivid it seems. Based on these characteristics, color is understood to have three key components: hue, value, and chroma.

• Hue:

Hue refers to the absolute purity or the dominance of a color. All primary colors are hues. All secondary colors are hues too. When colors are presented in single-color gradients going from light to dark, their dominant color will be called a hue.

Take a look.

Color Hues

Importance of hue in graphic design:

The term ‘hue’ is purely a functional concept. How does it help designers?

• It establishes the basic color identity for your brand design work.
• It gives you more control over your work by giving you a constant color around which to work.
• It keeps communication clear and precise as designs move around teams and platforms.

When you fully understand hue, it’s easy to understand value and chroma — concepts that clarify hue’s light and purity.

• Value:

Value qualifies how light or dark a color is. White has the highest value while black has the lowest. On a value spectrum, both these colors sit at the extreme opposites. When colors move from light to dark, they go from high to low values.

Color Value – Black to White

White is added to create high-value colors, also called tints, and black is added to create low-value colors, also called shades.

Color Tint, Hue, and Shade

In design, high contrast values (tints and shades pairings) create the most striking effects. Light colors paired with darker shades. They aid hierarchy, reading, and accessibility too.

Controlling color values can create branding elements that stand out or recede.

• Chroma/Saturation:

Chroma refers to the purity of the color. An original hue has the highest chroma with no black, white, or gray. As we add these attributes, the chroma of the color changes from bright and intense to pale and dull.

Color Saturation

In graphic design, chroma is used to match the overall energy of the piece. Compared to value, its practical applications are less in the readability section and more in the emotional sphere. The chroma is adjusted to switch the energy in a color palette. High-impact drama is achieved with purer hues (absolute chroma), while low-chroma colors are used as backgrounds or accents.

Absolute Chroma vs. Low Chroma

High-chroma colors are also used for things such as calls to action, poster design, logo design for strong, recognizable brand identity, and eye-catching packaging.

Major Color Models

Graphic designers typically work in two major color environments: RGB and CMYK. RGB is used for digital mediums while CMYK is for print and painting. Since branding always exists both in print and digital designs, it’s critical to understand these color models in detail. It will help you keep your color matches consistent from web design to business cards, and logo design to marketing brochures.

In the following section, we discuss these RGB and CMYK in some detail.

• RGB Color Model

The RGB model consists of three primary colors: red, green, and blue. This model is specific to electronic displays and digital media.

RGB Color Model – Red, Green, and Blue

It is an additive color model based on light where varying intensities of red, green, and blue light are mixed to achieve all other colors. Mixed at their purest intensities, the three colors produce white light; at their zero intensities, they produce black.

Why do you need to know that?

Because if you understand the critical role of light in this model, you can use it to create specific color mixes, combinations, gradients, effects, shadows, and highlights. When you understand how changes in light affect the outcome, you are in better control to influence that outcome.

• CMYK Color Model

The CMYK color model is used in print-specific designing. So if you are working on branding material that will exist in print such as a book cover, a company flyer, or a packaging label, you’ll work in the CMYK environment.

CMYK Color Model – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key Black

The CMYK model uses three primary colors — cyan, magenta, and yellow — and a key (black ink) which is added to color mixes when a deeper black is required.

How does it work?

The CMYK model is a subtractive color model. Meaning, when cyan, magenta, and yellow inks are mixed, they subtract (or absorb) all the extra light reflected from the paper, so the final color mix you get is richer and deeper than what you get with color mixes in digital media (which are brighter and sharper).

In theory, cyan, magenta, and yellow inks should produce black. The idea is that you keep adding these inks together and keep mixing and eventually you’ll get the color. Practically, however, you get a muddy blob of weird brown. Nothing near pure black.

So black ink is added to print designs for truer tints and shades of black.

Why do you need to know that?

Because print-ready designs must always be created in CMYK models and if you don’t know how black interacts with the rest of the color mixes, you’re bound to make mistakes and get your colors wrong.

4 Practical reasons for having two color models

All graphic designers go through this internal debate sometimes, especially during their early careers. The struggle of switching from one color space to the next or forgetting to begin the work in the right space can be a lot.

So, why is it necessary to have two distinct color models? Why can’t we use either for both?

Feeling color-wiser yet?

Fully understanding color theory and all that comes with it can be considered a life-long education. We hope this article proves a good stepping stone for you in this journey. As we go through this series, you’ll see a lot of what we’ve discussed today repeated so use that information as refreshers and reminders and keep working to get your colors right.

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