#IXD103 Week 3 – Interaction of Colour by Josef Albers

A short introduction to Josef Albers…

Josef Albers was a German born artist and theorist that enrolled at the famously known Bauhaus and later ended up teaching at this facility. After becoming a refugee due to the crippling effects of the Nazi’s he fled to America where began to further his teaching career at Black Mountain College. This is when he further developed his theories on colour and published one of the most influential books known to lecturers on colour.

After Week 5’s class on colour, I decided to read Josef Albers book “Interaction of Color” in hopes that it could help me develop and strengthen my awareness and knowledge on colour, ultimately allowing me to create the best colour scheme for my brand.

Review

Josef’s book is a record of experimental ways of studying and teaching colour. It is a fantastic teaching aid for instructors, artists and students alike. Josef teaches the eccentric explanation of complex colour theories and its principles. The start of the book consists of a more diagrammatic approach while the other half is visually more abstract and experimental with 60 different colour studies and demonstrating principles such as visual memory, colour reading, light intensity, relativity of colour, gradients, colour deception, mixing and similarity, etc.

One of the quotes that I found interested which is displayed right at the introduction page,

β€œIn visual perception a colour is almost never seen as it really is – as it physically is. This fact makes colour the most relative medium in art.”

With this quote, Josef sets the standards for his book, with limited experience in colour I was unsure at first what this meant but as I continued his book and seen through both his diagrams on temperature, light and deception; also his visual experiments it began to make sense. For example, the colours of the two small squares are in fact not two different colours but in fact are the same. They are just perceived to be different from the colours that engulf them creating an illusion.

Josef explains how colour relativity can be influenced by a variety of factors such as colours that are in a constant state of fluxion and can only be understood in relation to other colours that surround them. He also states that there is also two key elements of a prescribed colour such as colour intensity which refers to the purity and saturation of colour and light intensity. Although, sought to be highly subjective, Albers mentions in his book about how every human sees colours differently and varies between the individual.

The illustrations and structured typography were well layout out perfect making it easy to cross read between each element. I am amazed at the authors knowledge into this subject matter. I found the book both great visually and a good read. It has shown me in order to appropriate colour effectively I must be aware of how colour is continuality deceptive. However, it is a learning curve in which I must practice myself on my own pieces but still retain contextual knowledge from this book.

 

 

 

 

 

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