A color scheme is the choice of colors used in design for a range of media. For example, the use of a white background with black text is an example of a basic and commonly default color scheme in web design. Color schemes are used to create style and appeal. Colors that create an aesthetic feeling when used together will commonly accompany each other in color schemes. A basic color scheme will use 2 colors that look appealing together. More advanced color schemes involve several colors mixed together, usually based around a single color; for example, text with such colors as red, yellow, orange and light blue arranged together on a black background in a magazine article. Color schemes can also contain different shades of a single color; for example, a color scheme that mixes different shades of green, ranging from very light (almost white) to very dark. Use of the phrase color scheme may also and commonly does refer to choice and use of colors used outside typical aesthetic media and context, although may still be used for purely aesthetic effect as well as for purely practical reasons. This most typically refers to color patterns and designs as seen on vehicles, particularly those used in the military when concerning color patterns and designs used for identification of friend or foe, identification of specific military units, or as camouflage. A color scheme in marketing is referred to as a trade dress and can be sometimes be copyrighted, such as kodak film, or Tide laundry detergent.[1]
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On the color wheel
Color schemes are often described in terms of logical combinations of colors on a color wheel.
Monochromatic color scheme
A monochromatic scheme consists of different values of one color.
Analogous color scheme
Also called harmonious colors, are colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. Some examples are green, light green, and yellow or red, orange and yellow.
Complementary color scheme
Complementary colors are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange, red and green, purple and yellow. These colors, when used side-by-side, make each other appear brighter. When they are mixed, they neutralize each other.
Split-complementary color scheme
A color scheme that includes a main color and the two colors on each side of its complementary (opposite) color on the color wheel.
Triadic color scheme
A triadic color scheme consists of three colors of equal distance apart on the color wheel, such as the basic triad of red, yellow, and blue on an RYB color model wheel.
Tetradic color scheme
Tetrads are any four colors with a logical relationship on the color wheel, such as double complements.
Examples of media where color schemes are used
- Advertising
- GUI
- The World Wide Web
- Cascading Style Sheets allow easily-editable color schemes to be applied to HTML webpages.
- Publishing
- Modern magazines use a range of colors in text and imagery which tend not to conform to a specific set of colors throughout the magazine.
- Interior design
- Art
