Colour theory (OUGD403)

We were asked to bring in 5 blue objects and to wear something blue so we could learn about colour theory in a hands on way.

We started by organising the objects from light to dark in a line.

Next we were told that all colours have a red or blue base colour that decides wether they are warm or cold looking. We had to divide the objects into warm and cold (or bathroom colours and lounge colours as we did it).

Next we made a ring to show the dark to light scale again and also swapped groups to change any objects in the ring we thought were in the wrong place. This was really interesting for showing how you categorise things just as blue or red but in reality they are all completely different colours.

Next we went outside and with all the colours we had to arrange them in an order of warmth and cold again so that they blended together as well as we could get them to.

We then got to use pantone cases to try and find exactly what pantone colour each object was, this was really good as having the physical spectrum in front of us was helpful in spotting the subtle differences between each shade of blue.

We then swapped groups again so see if we thought they had got any pantone codes wrong, we found some were right and some wrong but it was hard to tell and we took photos as it made the colours more flat and easier to distinguish between. 

I thought this lesson was really interesting as we found out that every colour you see is in the pantone collection and has a unique code which can be used to match print to web colour. Also it was good to see such a range of what I would previously consider as one colour.