From the course: Design Aesthetics for the Web

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Tweaking color value to add contrast

Tweaking color value to add contrast

From the course: Design Aesthetics for the Web

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Tweaking color value to add contrast

- [Instructor] The second of the eight elements of design is value, which refers to the relative lightness or darkness of a color within a composition. As with color, the values of colors you choose can also help to convey emotion and meaning, as well as add contrast to define areas of interest in your designs. For our purposes then, the definition of value is the degree of lightness or darkness in a given color. Referring again to the color wheel, we can see that pure colors in that wider center ring and the values of each color range inward and outward from light to dark. In other words, when we take a pure color and add white, we get a tint. When we take a pure color and add gray, we get a tone, and when we take a pure color and add black, we get a shade. Some colors make us instantly have positive or negative associations, or even particular emotions. For example, pastel colors might make us happy, seem more feminine or evoke thoughts of spring or Easter, or babies. Muted colors…

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