Colour studies exercise

Another development exercise we did was colour studies. We took one of our initial designs, photocopied them and tried different colour palettes on them. The aim was to experiment and develop our ideas using what we learnt on colour theory in the previous terms. I used coloured pencils for my colouring

This first attempt was supposed to be an analogous colour scheme using yellow, yellow-orange and orange but the orange ended up looking brown. I didn't like how it came out and it doesn't look like a colour one would go for in a library.

 

 

 

The next theory I attempted was complimentary colour. I used red and green which are on opposte ends of one another. I used red for the roof and green for the borders around the windows. I also used green to represent the grass for the outdoor seating area and I used a pinkish-red to try and balance it out. I think this colour is too flashy for a public library, especially the red, but if I was to attempt it I would use a cooler tone.

 

 

 

 

 

I then tried the monochromatic colour scheme. I wanted to go for a more rich and earthy colour per my initial ideas in my mind map so I attempted brown. I imagine the colour would work better if it came from a material such as wood instead of a paint colour

 

 

 

I attempted complementary colours again, this time orange and blue. I also don't think it works well for a library but again maybe a better placement of the colour in pastel tones can have a different effect

 

 

This colour scheme was analogous colours namely red, red-orange and orange. I particularly liked this one but I again have to factor in the type of building and what kinf of messages I want to send especially with colours such as this

This one was meant to be polychromatic colours but I found myself implementing the primary colours (excluding green) in it. Compared to my previous colour schemes this ones seems more toned down even with the use of the primary colours. I also think it can be used to communicate the library as a 'place of knowledge' using the basic principles of colour

 

 

Lastly, this one was supposed to the split complemetary colour theory namely yellow, red-violet and blue-violet. The colours used are definitely not red and blue violet but I still attempted it. I don't particularly like this one as it feels unbalanced

In general, this exercise helped in developing my design by understanding how colour affects things such as user experience, the symbolism of the building and the overall highlight a building's character. The colour influences how we perceive the structure so it was an important exercise which reminded me that it is not just the form of the building that makes attracts people to it