Elements of Design

Colour: Colour is all around us in many forms. It is one of the most important aspects of all textile materials — be it for apparel, household, commercial or institutional use. The identity of the product is most often attributed to colour. Everyone responds to colour and has definite preferences.

Colour reflects the season, events and the spirit of people. The choice is affected by culture, tradition, climate, season, occasion or purely personal reason. Colour is an important part of Fashion. Designers carefully choose fabric colours to make a definite statement.

Colour Theory: Colour can be defined as reflection of light striking the surface of an object. It is the visual sensation resulting from reflection of visible light rays that strike the retina and stimulate cells in the nerves of the eye. The nerves send a message to the brain, which produces a sensation of a specific kind, and we see colour. The colour that is observed by the brain is dependent on the particular wave length or combination of wave lengths of the light source.

To see colour on any material, light must be reflected from the object to be seen by the eye. When all light rays are reflected, the object appears white; when none are reflected it is black. Understanding Colour Study of colour is dependent on light. Light is a form of radiant energy and forms a part of electro-magnetic radiation spectrum.

Sunlight is the radiant energy reaching the Earth from Sun by light waves. Light falling on raindrops are scattered to produce the spectrum of seven colours —VIBGYOR (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red). Sunlight rays are thus composed of these seven visible colours along with ultra-violet and infra-red rays. Light rays of short wavelengths are grouped as receding or restful colours — green, blue green, blue and purple.

Longer wave lengths have red orange and yellow, which are advancing or stimulating colours . Because light is composed of different wavelengths, colour is seen in different values and intensities. Colour is specified in three aspects: Hue, Value and Intensity or Chroma. Hue is the common name of the colour.

Spectrum specifies the seven colours as VIBGYOR. To understand colour from a design point of view, reference is made to the Munsell’s Colour Wheel. This divides colours as; Primary colours : These cannot be produced by mixing any other colour. These are red, yellow and blue (refer circles in the Fig.

. ). Secondary colours : These are made by mixing two primary colours — orange, green and violet (squares in the Fig. .

). Tertiary or intermediates: These are made by mixing one primary and one secondary colour, lying adjacent to each other on the colour wheel. Thus we have red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-purple and red-purple (the small triangles in the Fig. .

). Apart from these there are the groups known as neutral colours such as white, black, grey, silver and metallics. These are called achromatics, i.e., colours without colour. The common colour wheel shows colours in their purest form and fullest intensity.

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