You can see how it all fits together on the color wheel below.Ĭool colors are all on the left side of the color wheel, in the blues and greens. Whew! So there we have it: a complete color wheel with primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, plus their tints, shades, and tones. You often hear people saying that a color needs to be "toned down", meaning it's too intense and they want to drop the level of intensity.Īdding black and white in different amounts to a color subdues the intensity quickly. When gray (black + white) is added to a pure color, you create a tone.
These darken and dull the brightness of pure colors, and range from slightly darker to almost black. When black is added to a pure color, you create a shade. Tints range from slightly whiter to almost-white. They are lighter and paler than a pure color, and not as intense.
Some people refer to these as pastel colors. When white is added to a pure color, you get a tint. These are the colors of children's toys, daycare decor, and summer clothes. They are intense, bright, cheery, and untainted colors. Pure Color Primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, without the addition of white, black, or a third color, are pure (or saturated) colors. It ends up being closer to the primary color. They are created by adding more of one primary color than the other creating not a true secondary color. They are the "two-name" colors, such as red-purple, red-orange, yellow-green, etc. Tertiary colors take secondary colors one step further. If you look on the color wheel, you'll find the secondary colors in between two primary colors. They are created using the primary colors. Secondary colors are purple, green, and orange. However, there are exceptions in cases like light (where they’re cyan, magenta, and yellow), the print industry’s CMYK, and the RGB model used in screens and monitors. In most cases, they’re red, blue, and yellow. Primary colors are the core ingredients other colors are made from by mixing them together in different amounts. And, when mixing paint, it matters what particular pigment you're using to get that red in order to come up with the proper new color.īut let's keep primary colors simple and stick with red, blue, and yellow.Let's not forget CMYK for print and RGB for screens or monitors.If you're talking color theory in regards to light, your primary colors would be cyan, magenta, and yellow.These three colors can be used to create the next level of colors, called the secondary colors.Įxceptions, of course, abound when it comes to talking about primary colors. Primary Color Primary colors are the three colors that make all other colors.
Anyone in marketing should understand the basics of color theory because no matter what, you are using color in your content. Understanding how color works isn't just for artists dipping their hands into paint and pigments all day long.
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