Visual Language 5

In this session we began working with colour instead of type. We brought in 10 items of a colour that we were given previously; my colour was red. We had to make sure that we had different tones of red to work with, so I had a range from purpley reds to orange reds.
To start the session we got into groups with the other students who were given the same colour as us.
The first task was to get all of our coloured items together as a group and lay them out in some logical form of categorisation. We chose to work simply in the difference of hue, starting on one end of the line with reds that had a strong pink/purple look to them, going across to pure reds in the middle and then really orangey reds on the other end of the line. We litteraly just had to compare 2 items together and decide the subtle difference in colour between each and place them along the line where we thought it fitted best.

I think we did this pretty well, but It got much more difficult when trying to take into account the lightness or darkness of the hue. For example, A really primary kind of red could also be quite dark, in which case it could look like it fits more with a darker purpley red on one end than in the middle with lots of lighter primary style reds.
The group using green came up with the idea of using the length and width of their line, so aswell as going from yellow greens to blue greens across the length of the line, they also went from darker to lighter across the width. I think that was a really good idea and a great way to make sure each object is in the right place.

For the next task, we were introduced to the pantone system of colour categorisation. This is a really important system for all designers and specifically relates to printing an exact colour. The pantone booklets have thousands of colours printed inside, much like a colour chart for paint at a diy store. The booklets have different styles of material (matt, gloss etc) and show the colours exactly as they are when printed.
The pantone system is an internationally used method for printing, and is important because it gives each prit colour a value. In this way, colours are not just known as 'yellowy green' but can be given a real unique value which gives that exact colour a name (for example 'DE 73-2 C). This stops troubles with translation (what I know as a yellowy green could be completely diferent to what someone else knows) and allows you to print something the exact right colour even from half way around the world.

After learning about Pantone, the groups had to choose 10 items from our colours and try to find their pantone value. We tried to pick really different hues of red to work with to make it a bit more interesting. This was a pretty difficult task but I think we did well. Some colours took a long time to find and a lot of times there were two different pantone values and we couldnt deicide which one matched better.