Covering Color Basics: A Review of ‘The Elements of Color’
Johannes Itten was a pretty weird dude. But, looking past his relationships with Hitler and a fire cult, he is kind of one of the most seminal people in color and shape theory. Since, I’m doing a little mini set of posts about visual design (logos, colors, basics), I would be remiss if I didn’t cover one of Itten’s pivotal works: The Elements of Color.
This book was recommended to me by another UXer. She said that this book is one of the basics for any graphic designer. After reading it I think it is probably a basic for anyone in design. The book is very rudimentary and mostly looks at how colors interact when placed together. Here is one of the graphics from the book.
By rudimentary I don’t mean that what is in the book is something that anyone can write. There are multiple references to other designers and theories that Itten builds his arguments from. What I mean by rudimentary is that what is proposed in the book is at the core of what we think of as color design today.
Here is the Delacroix, which shows colors divided into a spectrum where Itten uses shapes and a high color saturation to show how colors are derived and interplay.
This graphic is one that any designer would know. It is so pervasive that people do not even ascribe it to Itten. That is how pervasive his work now is within the field!
Now, about five years after I read this book for the first time, there are a couple of things that stick with me. The first is the discussion about the color yellow. It turns out that if you take the color yellow at a particular hue and saturation, and were to take a different color at that same hue and saturation, any other color would look more intense. This is because yellow has problems, when next to other colors, with having the same saturation to our eyes. Even in the color blocks above, Itten says that he has had to increase the saturation of the yellow blocks so that the color range looks correct.
The second thing I took from this book is to play with colors. Just like when you go to buy paint for your kitchen, you should actually take home a whole bunch of different shades and put them on the wall. It isn’t until you see how the paint will respond to light within the space that you should make a final decision. So much of any color is how it looks in comparison to another color when it is actually put on the canvas. This is especially true when it comes to UX. I have designed entire interfaces and then put them on the screen for the customer and saw that they looked washed out or that grays used as background colors were not even visible. Colors are fickle and Itten taught me that.
There are few downsides to the book. Like most design books, it is our of print. Luckily there always seems to be someone on Amazon selling a used version. The second problem I have with this book is that whenever I open it I just want to take all the visuals and put them on my wall. They are beautiful and beautifully printed.
The last problem with this book is the tone. The book takes the tone of one who is speaking to a novice. Sure the tone is a bit pompous, but since Itten is definitely a master of his craft it is something that I can look past. Additionally, since I was a novice in color theory, I was willing to be talked down to by an old dead white guy. You might not be.
Book Club Questions
- Is there anyone else from Bauhaus that you regularly refer back to?
- How do you pick colors and make sure that they work?
- How do you compensate for saturation and hue to have your colors balance?
