The 3 Dimensions of Color
🧪 Entry #02: Start training your eye.
I hope you’ve been having fun experimenting with color!
Let’s continue our deep-dive into The 12 Competencies of Personal Style with another lesson on color type.
color type
wardrobe editing
fit + measurements
silhouette + proportion
color story
texture
multidimensional style
conflict + balance
full outfits
In Entry #01, you started to become aware of your experience with color. Now, you’re ready to make some key observations based on The 3 Dimensions of Color.
And if you’d like to learn your color type, these foundational concepts (with the help of a few tips and tricks) will guide you!
The 3 Dimensions of Color
All colors can be fully defined in terms of three dimensions: hue, value, and chroma.
Hue: Warm or Cool?
Hue is the pure or spectral color that is most closely related to a given color. It is the attribute by which colors are most commonly classified. For example, red, green, or blue.
In color analysis, a color’s temperature is the most important aspect of its hue. The temperature of a color is defined by its hue.
A hue’s temperature can be cool, warm, or neutral.
A hue’s temperature can also be viewed as warmer or cooler relative to other hues. So color temperature is not purely subjective, it is also relative. For instance, blue is generally considered to be a cool color, but when we look at a range of different blues, we can see that there are warmer shades and cooler shades of blue.
In general, adding blue to a color will make it cooler, and adding yellow to a color will make it warmer.
🌿 Spring and 🍁 Autumn are warm seasons.
❄️ Winter and 🌺 Summer are cool seasons.
Value: Light or Dark?
Value is the lightness or darkness of a color. It is the attribute by which color is scaled from black to white. Colors with low value are dark, and colors with high value are light.
🌿 Spring and 🌺 Summer are lighter seasons.
❄️ Winter and 🍁 Autumn are darker seasons.
Chroma: Bright or Muted?
Chroma is the brightness or softness of a color. Adding gray to any color results in a softer, or more muted color. Mixing complementary colors has a similar effect.
🌿 Spring and ❄️ Winter are brighter seasons.
🌺 Summer and 🍁 Autumn are softer seasons.
The 12 Seasons
In seasonal color typing, each of the basic seasons is defined by a combination of temperature, value, and chroma.
Spring is warm, light, and bright.
Summer is cool, light, and muted.
Autumn is warm, dark, and muted.
Winter is cool, dark, and bright.
Then, each subtype is further defined by its primary characteristic. Your primary characteristic is the most important characteristic to match when choosing colors for your color palette. Your primary characteristic is either cool, warm, light, dark, soft, or bright.
Light Spring’s primary characteristic is light.
True Spring’s primary characteristic is warm.
Bright Spring’s primary characteristic is bright.
🗝️ Behind the Paywall
An exercise to deepen your awareness of color
A cheeky little discount code to fast-track your color type
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