Color Basics - By Jonathan Munk
We often think of logo design as an art rather than a science, but believe it or not, there are some scientific principles that can help in choosing just the right color combination for your logo.
Primary Colors. In traditional color theory, three colors: yellow, blue and red, cannot be mixed or created by any other combination of colors. And all other colors are derived from these three.
Secondary Colors. The three main colors derived from the primary colors, orange, purple and green, are known as secondary colors.
Tertiary Colors are created by mixing one primary and one secondary color. The resulting colors are yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green and yellow-green.
Colors that are across from each other on the color wheel are known as complimentary colors. Notice that none of the primary colors are directly across from each other on the color wheel, but the secondary and tertiary color charts both have colors that are opposite on their respective color wheels. These opposites are complimentary colors.
Yellow and purple, orange and blue, and red and green (as well as black and white) are all sets of complementary colors, which means that when they are next to each other in a logo, they provide maximum contrast and stability and stand out nicely.
Of course, unmodified complementary colors might be a bit too loud for most logos, but variations on the colors, as well as changes in color saturation and brightness, can still provide a lot of contrast for maximum visual appeal.