Describing Colors

color

What you and I call a color is the final product, created from all the variables of hue, shade, tone, and chroma (saturation).

hue

If you take a pure color wheel and just plop your finger down on a spot, that's the hue. If you add other colors to it (not black/white), then the hue changes. If you add black or white to it, you get a shade or tint. Hue is where you start. Hue is actually determined by wavelength.

luminance

The brightness of a color, running the whole spectrum from almost totally black to almost totally white. The more technical term that encompasses both shade and hue.

shade

A hue with black added.

tint

A hue with white added.

saturation, chroma

The intensity of a color.

Describing Color Palettes

monochrome

Monochrome color palettes are a single color, combined with either white or black (typically white). "Black and white" is definitely the most common monochrome color palette. A color palette that includes mixtures of the color and "background" (black/white), e.g. tints and shades, is still considered monochrome.

analogous

Analogous color schemes are composed of colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. For example, blue, green, and yellow—or, at a closer resolution of the color wheel, blue-green, pure green, and green-yellow.

complementary

Complementary color palettes are composed of colors exactly opposite each other on the traditional color wheel. Not to be confused with complimentary, which would be a color palette that said nice things about your new Threadless t-shirt.

triadic, split-complementary

A triadic, or split-complementary, color palette, is formed when you use an isosceles triangle overlaid on the traditional color wheel. You have a single color on one side, and two colors below it—much like the legs of the center part of a peace sign.

quadratic, double split-complementary

A quadratic color scheme is similar to a triadic color scheme, only instead of overlaying a peace sign over the color wheel, you overlay a rectangle. Another way to achieve a quadratic color scheme is to overlay two triadic color schemes, oriented in opposite directions, and so quadratic color schemes are thus also known as double split-complementary (just to be extra confusing).