Rods determine brightness, while cones determine the hues of red, yellow or blue. Rods and conesĪs wavelengths process through the iris of our eyes, rods and cones are receptors of wavelengths. When we see color, our eyes are receiving and processing those wavelengths and converting them to colors. For each color there is a unique light wavelength. Where does color come fromĮlectromagnetic radiation (EMR) contains radio waves, microwaves, ultraviolet, X-rays, and much more including a subset of what we call “visible light.” These visible light wavelengths contain all the colors that humans can observe without any additional tools. Color, at its core, is a relative and personal experience. But when getting into specifics - accurately defining what it a certain color is - it’s almost impossible. Chances are the description will settle on, for example, is the color more of a brick-red or a fire truck-red?ĭescribing a color that looks similar to another color is natural way to discuss or express color. Try to describe a specific red color to a friend. Sure, you have your red, your green, and so on - but even that is relative. One of our very own Dribbblers Justin Mezzell created a downloadable color exploration template for Adobe Illustrator so you can simply start dropping in your own color schemes! Check it out: If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to exploring color, we’ve got you covered. As you can see in the examples above, every color exploration will look a little different-you can use as many colors as you like, and you can play around with various shapes, textures, and typography to add even more depth. They can be as simple or as complex as you decide. The good news is, creating a color exploration is fairly simple because there are no hard and fast rules. It’s a technique many graphic designers like to use for exploring how different color sets work together in various applications. What is a color explorationĪ color exploration (sometimes called a color study), is an abstract, visual representation of a set of colors, designed for you to see how each color interacts with one another. One way to do this is through color exploration-a creative approach to generating beautiful color palettes that work for a particular project. On the hunt for the perfect color palette? While there are plenty of color palette generating tools available on the web, there’s nothing quite like curating your very own, unique combination of colors.

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