School of Design – The Theory of Color 3
Welcome back! Today we’re going to look at color and how is defines space an creates balance in a layout. A lot of the time, you see color doing both simultaneously.
In this layout by BEATRICEMI, she does a beautiful job using the primary colors in her layout. The yellow, which grabs our attention faster than any other color, is used for the layer the pics and elements sit on. That yellow helps define the space by saying – “Hey! Look over here, this is where the action is!” It helps that it sits on a neutral base, that helps it pop a bit more. The red elements also direct our attention to the important parts of the layout, the pictures and journaling.
But the red elements on her layout also serve another purpose, they add balance to the layout. One of my first art teachers always told us that if we used a color once, we had to use it again in an odd number of places on our painting. Although I’ve never seen anything written about this, it’s a rule I still live by, and one I see demonstrated over and over again not only in traditional art, but also in layouts! I believe it does create balance, as evidenced here.
Here’s another example in this layout by KYM-TSUKAMOTO‘s layout. In this layout the white (lack of color) defines the space for her focal point. The complimentary colors, purple and yellow, pull your attention to her image and the use of an odd number of purple, both elements, type and especially the stitching on the top left, frame and balance the layout.
CHRISTY-CARLSON‘s splits the focal points, but defines them with the use of the warm coral. The addition of peach creates an analogous color scheme. The coral next to the journaling makes it pop and then your eye is led to the picture, which is framed by the coral. You can see that the colors of her layout are replicated throughout to add balance.
Lastly, we have this layout by KATHERINE-HANSEN. Katherine layout sorta uses a kind of split complimentary color scheme, with the slight greenish blue, yellows in the patterned paper and the hot pink. The three hot pink elements frame it up and balance it nicely! Just a simple, perfect layout!
Like I said in my first post, a lot of these design principles usually occur naturally, I’d bet that none of these designers were intentionally placing these things to define the space and create balance. They just naturally did it because it “looked right”. But if you think your layout lack balance you can always use this to help your designs out!
