
Ask HN: Is there a “Colors for Dummies?” - hashkb
I&#x27;ve spent my life feeling stupid when it comes to colors.  I&#x27;m stumped by the subtle differences (e.g. taupe, beige, tan, sand) and choosing what matches and what clashes.  Is there a &quot;Colors for Dummies&quot; or &quot;Learn Colors the Hard Way&quot; meant for analytical people who don&#x27;t have an intuitive grasp of color?<p>Note: I am not colorblind.  Just colordumb.
======
PaulHoule
My wife is an artist and she told me about the color wheel and the common
kinds of color schemes

[http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-
theor...](http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theory-
intro.htm)

the short of it is that you will get much better results with hsv than you
will with rgb

~~~
hashkb
This is great! Thank you! (And your wife, too.)

------
brudgers
The easiest way to pick good colors is to copy good colors that someone else
picked. There are many resources on color theory, and they can help a person
understand why some colors work together and what someone who knows what they
are doing did. Itten's _Elements of Color_ is the only formal book on color in
my library. It's useful, but there are lots of other things out there.

Color wheels are kind of cool and cheap:
[http://www.alvinco.com/Shop/Products.aspx?GID=5993](http://www.alvinco.com/Shop/Products.aspx?GID=5993)

The Munsell system is a bit pricier: [http://munsell.com/color-products/color-
communications-produ...](http://munsell.com/color-products/color-
communications-products/munsell-books-and-sheets/)

Pantone is great for specifying print colors:
[http://www.pantone.com/graphics/process-
color?from=topNav](http://www.pantone.com/graphics/process-color?from=topNav)

On the other hand, one man's sand is another's off white. Naming colors is a
whole 'nother ball game.

Good luck.

------
a_e_k
Try playing around with Adobe Kuler [1] for a bit and explore some of themes
you like on there. The color creator has some of the basic color rules like
analogous, complementary, triadic, and so forth so you can experiment to get a
feel for how they work.

[1] [https://color.adobe.com/create/color-
wheel/](https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/)

------
JeffreyKaine
I'm a self taught designer. I learned color through imitation. Copy someone
who is good, do that enough, and you'll start to get a feel for what works.
Theory only goes so far with something as subjective as "what looks good
together" though theory can point you down the right path.

------
kleer001
tl;dr you want this SIGGRAPH color science vid:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i3s5KZt2fw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i3s5KZt2fw)

Forget color names. (e.g. taupe, beige, tan, sand). Color is a Science (RGB /
HSV / CMYK / etc...) and those names mean nothing but arbitrary regions and
are fundamentally useless except to business trying to sell their paints. Also
they make me crazy, I hate them so much.

If you have some time research the compositing discipline of visual effects
for movies.

Compositors are the people that layer together images from the lighters.
Ummm... they make everything look real? Haha, I haven't had to explain
compositing in laymen terms in a while. Sorry, here's a couple videos...

Here's a simple breakdown and explanation about the craft of compositing:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0WpIzi8sc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0WpIzi8sc4)

Here's the technical theory about color:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i3s5KZt2fw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i3s5KZt2fw)

I apologize, I haven't watched this video myself, but it looks like the right
stuff.

------
faet
I picked up Design for hackers[0] a few years ago. It goes over color/fonts
and other design patterns. It's been pretty useful for projects I've done. It
goes over when to use certain colors (ie, target uses red because you'll buy
more.) and some color pallets that work well together. I got it because I
didn't want to learn full color theory and whatnot, just the basics.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-
Bea...](http://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-
Beauty/dp/1119998956)

------
auganov
Perhaps I've never been especially bad at colors. But what ultimately improved
my [single] color intuition the most is internalizing HSB
(Hue/Saturation/Brightness). When I think of a color I think of an HSB
coordinate.

Maybe it doesn't help much with composition but you have to start somewhere I
guess.

------
jason_slack
There was an article a few days ago here that mentioned
[http://www.lolcolors.com/](http://www.lolcolors.com/)

