Calculated Harmony · Complimentary contrast
Which complimentary colours supplement a starting colour harmonically?
The opportunity to contrast the starting colour with complimentary colours presents itself with this window. Complimentary colours help each other to reach higher intensity, it creates a lively mood, in the extreme it creates a dramatic effect, and when employed skillfully it creates a harmonic overall picture.
Federico Zandomeneghi: "Le Moulin de la Galette", 1878, 80x120cm
Variations of the complimentary colours red-orange and yellow-green provide for
a tension filled, harmonic whole.
In the first step the window ascertains the ideal typical colours, which result in a n-Eck in the CIELAB colour circle of the same brightness and saturation when taken with the starting colour. In each case you can indicate the next closest colour to the ideal typical addition in the chosen colour model by using “show real colours”.
This variation is also referred to as hue contrast or
colourful type contrast.
The colourful tone contrast according to Itten, Ostwald
and Goethe
An old rule according to Johannes Itten and Willhelm Ostwald states that
colours fit together harmonically when mixed together they become achromatic
(grey). The rule is based on the psychological tenet that humans perceive
tensions as uncomfortable and attemtp to balance them out. Nobody could express
it better than...
"When the eye sees a colour it is immediately excited, and it is its nature, spontaneously and of necessity, at once to produce another, which with the original colour comprehends the whole chromatic scale. A single colour excites, by a specific sensation, the tendency to universality. In order to become aware of this totality and to satisfy itself, it searches for a colourless space next to every colourful one, in order to bring out the required colour therein." In this resides the fundamental law of all harmony of colours..." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
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This principle of colour harmony has not lost any of
its relevance even after over 200 years!
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The complimentary contrast is as manifold
as life itself and stands for an easy going, natural vibrancy.
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Carried over into today’s CIELAB colour model the rule is as follows in mathematical form: The CIELAB colour values from two or more harmonic colours result in a mean of a neutral CIELAB colour value (a = b = 0) or in a HLC colour value in which C = 0.
A RAL DESIGN colour is supplemented by five complementary colours.
Short instruction
- Select „Colour harmony“ and the first button of the harmony variants.
- Choose the starting colour of the harmony calculation. Either by entering colour values or by selecting one of the included colour systems.
- You can select the number of steps (including the starting colour) below the result rectangle.
- Using the results-list calculate with "Ideal" or "RAL..." either...
- ideal type complementary colours (H-variations in CIE HLC), or
- the RAL-colours located closest to these results as well as their variances Delta E to the according calculated ideal colour.
A click on the PDF button opens a window which includes the results in a well arranged form combined on one page. You can print this page for your documents or you can pass it on by E-Mail.
Further functions
If you press and hold down the Alt key while drawing the mouse over the
results field, the number of grades varies. Draw it to the right and the
grade gets larger (max. 20), draw it to the left and it gets smaller.
Double click on any given colour in the results field (bar or list) the
colour will create a new complementary contrast for the newly specified
colour. With the ideal complementary contrast (not calculated in the RAL
systems) you can switch off between Lab, HLC and RGB coordinates.
All of the information to the chosen complementary contrast is stored in the pdf file.
Complementary colours
A variantion gains a particular significance when the number of
grades selected is set to "2" and the "Ideal" setting
is check marked. The 2 resulting colour tones are exact complentary colours
(contrast
colours). The show the largest possible dissimilarity, mixing them would
result in grey.
If the check mark is removed from "Ideal" it becomes evident
how well the contrast colours are realisable in the respective colour systems.
Two strongly saturated complementary colours are generally not harmonic.
The contrast between the two is too large, the tension created too strong,
so that we no longer perceive them as pleasing. In contrast to that, complementary
pastel tones do appear harmonic, as the created tension is pleasing to
us.
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