#173 Neutrals & Pastels

#173 Neutrals & Pastels
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The softer side of color

Amper­Art #173 Neu­trals & Pas­tels is all about the soft­er col­ors of the spec­trum. While neu­trals are often used for inte­ri­or wall & fur­ni­ture décor, as well as paper stock & car inte­ri­ors, pas­tels are fre­quent­ly used to cheer up a room & express soft­ness & joy. You’ll see pas­tel cars, too. & of course, since this is the March 2021 Amper­Art release, let’s not for­get pas­tel East­er eggs. Com­bin­ing the soft pas­tels & bril­liant hues of flow­ers reminds us of spring.

Neutrals: hue & tone

Neu­trals are col­ors that have just a hint of hue, or none at all. (I could say “just a hint of col­or” but actu­al­ly every­thing you see is a col­or.) Neu­trals range from pure black to pure white, & all the col­ors in between are basi­cal­ly gray with or with­out a lit­tle hue added.

Hue is pure red, yel­low, pur­ple, green, pink, cerulean, & so on; the pure col­ors on the col­or wheel.

Tone is what is done to those hues by adding var­i­ous amounts of gray (tint plus shade), whether dark, medi­um or light. This results in a mut­ed col­or. Mut­ed enough, it’s a neu­tral. In home décor, neu­trals most often refer to light vari­a­tions of white or gray; how­ev­er they can run the gamut of mid-​gray to char­coal. Neu­trals, in the realm of décor & design jar­gon, aren’t always exactl y neu­tral, though — they can have a slight tinge of hue, such as bluish gray or beige. Even white & black are neutrals

Tip: to achieve the col­or teal, which is not a pure hue nor a neu­tral, you sim­ply add gray to your choice of green­ish blue or blueish green. You’ll get a mut­ed blue or green, which is teal.

Pastels: hue & tint

Pas­tel col­ors are obtained by sim­ply tint­ing (adding white to) hues. The result­ing col­ors retain the puri­ty of the hues, just a lighter ver­sion. If black were also added that would tran­form the pas­tels into neutrals.

My own logo: neutrals & pastels

It just so hap­pens that logo for my graph­ic design stu­dio com­bines sil­ver, which is neu­tral, for the word “DESIMONE” & pas­tels for the word “design” which, against a black back­ground, cre­ates a strik­ing contrast.

To wit: (Haven’t heard that term in a long time, have you…if ever?)

Speak­ing of logo design, there should always be a sol­id rea­son for every ele­ment, whether shape, type­style, or col­or, in a logo — even if the mean­ing is a per­son­al one, sig­nif­i­cant only to the busi­ness own­er. The tighter the logo is embraced by the CEO & staff, the stronger it will be val­ued, pro­mot­ed & rec­og­nized. In my design stu­dio logo, each pair of let­ters in the word “design” stands for a spe­cial time in my ear­ly life relat­ed to design. The turquoise & orange of “d” & “e” are the col­ors I used to paint a cork coast­er in 5th grade as a gift to my mom. Pur­ple & green graph­ics, sig­ni­fied by “s” & “i,” were used on posters for a haunt­ed house I put togeth­er while in junior high. The “g” & “n” orange & pink were the col­ors of the cof­fee shop, House of Pies, where I met & befriend­ed one of my design men­tors, Dave Cobb, in my late teens. Sil­ver, the col­or of the let­ter­ing for “DESIMONE,” holds a lot of sig­nif­i­cance: it’s my favorite metal­lic col­or being pure, untaint­ed with gold or cop­per hues, mod­ern & cool, & sim­ply neu­tral, encom­pass­ing all the col­ors mixed togeth­er. It also reminds me of mid-​century design, which I can’t get enough of. & the black back­ground? Besides pro­vid­ing a strik­ing con­trast for the neu­trals & pas­tels, black is my absolute favorite col­or. (As for the choice of typog­ra­phy, that’s a dif­fer­ent top­ic on which I’ll elab­o­rate when I release “Roman & Goth­ic” — this post is all about neu­trals & pastels.)

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Chaz DeS­i­mone, design­er & typog­ra­ph­er, is the cre­ator of Amper­Art & own­er of Des­i­mone Design. He was adding ser­ifs to let­ters when he was just a lit­tle brat scrib­bling on walls. Now he’s a big brat & his entire career is design, so long as each project requires the most sophis­ti­cat­ed, log­i­cal, cap­ti­vat­ing results. Con­tact him at chaz@​desimonedesign.​com.

Thank you for sub­scrib­ing to Chaz’s per­son­al design project, Amper­Art. Men­tion you read all the way to the bot­tom here & receive a tru­ly incred­i­ble graph­ic design gift when you con­tact Chaz.

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