Both of the texts are bolded, they’re the exact same size and the exact same colour, but how come one is a lot easier to read than the other?
The answer to that question lies behind colour theory
Colour Theory
You’ve probably heard of it in the passing before, you might even know what it is, but, what exactly is colour theory?
Essentially, there are 3 main components to colour theory: the colour wheel, colour harmony and colour context.
The colour wheel describes how colours mix together and involves the primary colours: red, yellow and blue, the secondary colours: orange, green and purple, and tertiary colours, such as yellow-orange, red-purple, blue-green etc.
The basic colour wheel with primary, secondary and tertiary colours. In reality, there are more than a million colours right now! Source from invision
Colour harmony describes how colours match with each other; it’s commonly associated with descriptions of various colour schemes. Imagine a sunset with its soft yellows, oranges and pinks. Now, imagine a dark magenta and put it next to dark swampy green and loud red. The colour scheme of a sunset is a lot more visually appealing than the other because the colours of a sunset harmonize while magenta, green and red will clash against each other.
Finally, colour context describes how colour is perceived. Look at the two sample texts from the beginning. Despite being the same colour, the red text against the orange tends to be more difficult to read compared to the red text against the light blue. This is because the light blue contrasts the red, therefore making the red appear more vibrant and allowing it to stand out.
Despite being the same colour, the purple rectangle appears red-tinged when paired with a cool-toned background and blue-tinged when paired with a warm-toned background. Source from ColorMatters
At this point, you may have an idea of why this matters.
Why Colour Theory Matters
While colour theory is interesting in itself, various colours and contrasts can affect a person’s cognitive abilities.
When testing people’s search response time of various icons with different colour combinations, a particular study found that certain colour combinations such as green/red, turquoise/blue, yellow/purple and green/blue resulted in a significantly slower response time while other combinations like white/blue, yellow/blue and yellow/black improved the response time.
A yellow icon against a blue background had a quicker response time than a turquoise icon against a blue background. Source from Christine Sun
It’s for that reason why it’s important to take time to decide on the colours of a design. Certain colours and colour combinations can make a design more noticeable, memorable and well-received while on the other hand, it can also cause a design to be heavily criticized as well.
What’s your favourite colour combination?
– Christine Sun