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hey all,
i keep seeing interesting posts about color schemes
and design aesthetics, so I'm revising the order in
which I'm putting up tutorials/tips on my website.
I'll be putting up the "About Colors" diatribe
in the "Aesthetics" section of my site @
http://63.226.106.19/lego a.s.a.p :-)
In the meantime,
i thought i'd post a summary of the basics
for those who don't make it to the full article:
----------------------------------------
About Colors
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These comments are about graphic design and
color in general (gfx designers please comment)
but specifically as to how color knowledge can
be applied to lego construction. (I'll cover
light/shading/contrast in a separate article)
Neutral "Colors":
Black, White, Grey, and Dark Gray are NOT colors
in the strict sense, they are effectively neutral
and can be used as the basis for any design w/out
really affecting a "color scheme".
For example, say I'm using a blue/orange scheme,
I can safely use any amount of white (ooh pretty)
or black (recessed detail areas) to provide depth
w/out distracting from the brain's natural tendency
to focus on the blues and oranges.
Red:
The brain will always see red first. In fact,
languages that have only 3 words for colors ALWAYS
have these three: black/white/red. For this reason,
if you are werking primarily in greyscale bricks
(b/w/gry/dkgry) arguably the best additional color is red.
(This is not a rule, creativity has none, just information.)
How Many?:
Generally, the brain can only handle a tripartite color
scheme. Two Colors is great, Three colors requires that they
coordinate somehow (more on that below). Four or more
is probably not very possible w/in the constraints of
the Lego manufacturing output (perhaps a challenge to
designers to make something/anything using 4 or more colors
that actually werk together ;-)
Coordinating:
Color itself consists of Hue/Saturation/Value. though there
are other ways of encoding color data, HSV is the nearest
equivalent to the way the brain works (although there are
still colors the eye can see that print/data cannot create.
These colors are called "out of gamut" colors).
Since Lego determines the colors, all I can really say here
is that any given color in lighter/darker shades will go w/
any other "shade" of that same color. For an example, look
@ http://63.226.106.19/lego/default.asp?page=Cetacea where
I used some lighter blues w/ the standard blues.
Summary:
I'm sure I could say more, and maybe I will in the longer
version of this article, but for now....
-paul
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