Audience – gives a little insight into designing for your audience.
Image – addresses types of images and elements that support your message.
Layout – provides information on how to use elements within your page layouts for easier readability.
Typography – one of my favorites elements of design, this page addresses definitions and how to use type effectively.
More at…http://www.writedesignonline.com/resources/design/rules/index.html
Consider that spot color results from adding a specific second color to the single color normally used (black is the traditional single color).
Use spot color to direct the reader’s eye to special sections or important information for fast identification.
Screen one, or both, of your colors, and achieve the effect of printing in multiple colors. Screening is the process by which you use a percentage (or lower value) of a full color, creating a lighter shade of the original. You can also add black to the color to make it darker.
Add a single color to black-and-white photographs (creating a duo tone) to bring depth and richness to the document. Look for examples of different duo tones in design books.
Substitute a different color for black in a two-color job as an effective way to increase the appeal and richness of the document.
Be smart, a well designed piece with two-colors and screens (tints of the two colors) will always be less expensive and probably better looking than a piece designed with mediocre four-color images.
Know that if you are designing a four-color piece, it will probably require a five, six, or more run through the press. You will probably want a spot color (a special non-process color other than Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black), a varnish (protective coating), and among other things a double hit (a second printing of a background color).
Printing and computer color
Remember that in printing, process colors: yellow, cyan (bright blue), magenta (blue red), and black make up all other colors.
If you select a color from a color swatch book and ask 1,000 printers to reproduce that color, you’ll get 1,000 different colors.
The color of the paper affects the color of the ink.
Know that on computer or television screens, red, green, and blue make up all other colors.
Colors viewed on monitors, computer or television will vary significantly unless calibrated.
More at http://www.writedesignonline.com/resources/design/rules/color.html#psych
Remember that most colors carry physiological, cultural, personal, emotional, and expressive implications.
Red
Any of various colors resembling the color of blood; the primary color at one extreme end of the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 610 and 780 nm. (Webster’s, p.1614).
Increases pulse rate and breathing and causes blood pressure to rise. Infants and children respond well to red. Red is for the amorous, outspoken, and optimistic. People who love red, love life.
The food color. Ever notice that restaurants use red a lot? It makes you hungry by increasing your body’s metabolism.
Hot, passionate, urgent, danger, blood, devil, angry, enraged, amorous, outspoken, optimistic
Yellow
A color like that of egg yolk, ripe lemons, etc.; the primary color between green and orange in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 570 and 590 nm. (Webster’s, p.2201).
The color of the sunny disposition, the idealist. Intellectuals love yellow. It takes more chemicals in the eye to see the color yellow. Yellow can have some negative effects — babies cry more often and longer in yellow rooms; in convalescent homes it makes older people shake as it affects their minor motor movement. As you get older you tend to dislike yellow because it can make you feel anxious or angry.
Yellow enhances concentration and speeds metabolism.
Warm, cowardice, caution, fearful, bright
Blue
The pure color of a clear sky; the primary color between green and violet in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 450 and 500 nm. (Webster’s, p.228).
The number one color choice of the introspective and educated. Blue causes the brain to send off 11 chemical tranquilizers and is a wonderful calming color.
or
Pumps people up. Proven to increase energy. Weight lifters should lift in a blue room. Production people will produce more in a blue room. Not a good color for hospitals.
Responsibility, trustworthiness, compassion, those are the attributes of royal blue.
Honest, integrity, righteous, puritantical, moral, severe, prudish, cool, melancholy, sad, glum, downcast, gloomy, unhappy, quality, first place
Orange
A color between yellow and red in the spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 590 and 610 nm; reddish yellow. A secondary color that has been formed by the mixture of red and yellow pigments (Webster’s, p.1361).
Not a color that everyone loves, but those who do are generally social and fun loving.
Confident, creative, adventurous, fun loving, sociable
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Green
A color intermediate in the spectrum between yellow and blue, an effect of light with a wavelength between 500 and 570 nm.; found in nature as the color of most grasses and leaves while growing, of some fruits while ripening, and of the sea. A secondary color that has been formed by the mixture of blue and yellow pigments (Webster’s, p.837).
A good color for people in transition. Green is Mother Nature’s color, lover’s of green may be fickle.
The money color–bound to influence.
In Celtic myths the Green man was the God of fertility.
Universal symbolism: Nature, freshness
Contemporary symbolism: Ecologically beneficial
Nature, health, regeneration, contentment, harmony,cheerful, lively, friendly, fresh, sickly, unripe, immature, simple, unsophisticated, gullible, new
Purple
Any color having components of both red and blue, such as lavender, esp. one deep in tone (Webster’s, p.1569).
The color of fantasy. Most men dislike purple.
Royalty, intelligence, wealth, beauty, inspiration, sophistication, high rank, exalted, imperial, princely, excessively ornate rhetoric, profane, shocking
Gray
Of a color between white and black; having a neutral hue (Webster’s, p.834).
A good color for offices. It promotes productivity and stimulates creativity.
Neutral, ambiguous, intermediate, apathetic, dull, drab, monotonous, mature, sober, somber, mousy, smoky
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Black
Lacking hue and brightness; absorbing light without reflecting any of the rays composing it. The color at one extreme end of the scale of grays, opposite to white (Webster’s, p.216).
Produces a feeling of solidarity and formality. Black is a natural classic.
The color of authority and power, yet also implies submission.
Aloof, evil, death, unknown, fear, mystery, dark, night, sad, murky, sinful, inhuman, fiendish, devilish, infernal, monstrous, horrible, nefarious, treacherous, traitorous, villainous, depressing, somber, doleful, mournful, funereal, disastrous, calamitous, harmful, deliberate, pessimistic, dismal, hostile, threatening, wicked, disgrace, morbid, grotesque, undesirable, dangerous, false
White
A color without hue at one extreme end of the scale of grays, opposite to black. A white surface reflects light of all hues completely and diffusely. Most so-called whites are very light grays: fresh snow, for example, reflects about 80 percent of the incident light, but to be strictly white, snow would have to reflect 100 percent of the incident light. It is the ultimate limit of a series of shades of any color (Webster’s, p.2167).
Never underestimate the power of this super neutral. It works with any other color, in any context, anywhere. One color plus white equals an almost foolproof color scheme.
White would be an inappropriate color for a wedding in China. It is the color of mourning. If a bride chooses a white wedding gown, her parents would probably not allow her to get married.
Innocence, purity, virginal, sterility, fairness, snow, frost, milk, ghostly, ultraconservative, blank, empty, transparent, honorable, dependable, auspicious, fortunate, harmless
Pink
A color varying from light crimson to pale reddish purple (Webster’s, p.1472).
Makes one feel prosperous, a bit pampered. “Baker Miller” pink (deep shade of pink, similar to Pepto Bismol) is used in jail holding cells to calm prisoners. Pink is also used to treat patients suffering from headache disorders.
Femininity, sweetness, prime, left-wing
Brown
A dark tertiary color with a yellowish or reddish hue (Webster’s, p.267).
Solid, reliable brown is the color of earth and is abundant in nature. Light brown implies genuineness while dark brown is similar to wood or leather. Brown can also be sad and wistful. Men are more apt to say brown is one of their favorite colors.
Earth, nature, dirt, tanned, drab, coffee, solid, sad
Physiological effects – mystics have long held we emanate a colored glow, or aura, which is thought to effect the state of a person’s health and spirituality. Today, chromotherapy is used to heal with colors. This form of treatment dates back thousands of years to the ancient “color halls” of Egypt, China, and India. A more prominent use of color therapy occurs in environmental design (the effect of color on health and behavior).
Color symbolism – our responses to color are not just biological. They are also influenced by color associations from our culture.
Personal color preferences – not only have we inherited cultural associations, but we also respond to colors in individual ways. Research has revealed some variables that help explain individual differences in color responses. One thing remains the same in color and that is our own color preferences are important to us.
Emotional effects – the actual emotional effect of a specific color in an artwork depends partly on its surroundings and partly on the ides expressed by the work as a whole. To be surrounded by blue lighting in an installation is quite different from seeing a small area of blue in a larger color context. For many of us the emotional effects of art may be difficult to articulate.
Local and expressive color – there are two opposite ways of using color in representational art. At one extreme is the local color – the color that something appears from nearby when viewed under average lighting conditions. We think of the local color of a banana as yellow, for example. At the other end of the extreme is the expressionistic use of color, whereby artists use color to express an emotional rather than a visual truth.
This information and more here http://www.writedesignonline.com/resources/design/rules/color.html#psych
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