Elements of Cloth Design - Colour

Elements of Design

A complete knowledge on the various fundemental elements of art and design would help a person to create and design a garment on an asthetic manner. To create beautiful garments consistantly one need to follow certain guidelines in selecting and arranging design elements. In creating a design one of the components which interact is the Design Elements.

The elements and principles of design are flexible and should be interpreted within the context of current fashion.The principles of design are the rates that governs how elements are combined. The elements are therefore the raw materials that must be combined successfully.

The following are the different elements of Art.

1. Line

2. Form and Shape                            

3. Colour and                                    

4. Texture

These elements are considered as 'plastics' in art language because they can be manipulated or arranged by the designer to create a desired illusions.

3. Colour: Colour is an important art element which no one can ignore. Appreciation of colour is largely an emotional process, is felt by nearly everyone, where as appreciation of other art elements such as line, form, texture etc, a large intellectual process is not so common. Colour is a source of universal pleasure and is used by everyone to delight them and also to fortify their living environment by its stimulating effect.

Since the world is filled with colours ranging from dull, grayish tones to more vivid, brillant hues, its seems difficult for us to learn to recognize the names accurately and identify colours accurately. The dimensions of colour are hue, value and intensity. By using these terms the dimensions of colour can be more effectively communicated. Hue is the name of a colour family such as red, blue or green. The term hue is often enormously used interchangeably with the word colour. While choosing a colour one must be atmost careful as colour creates the first impression and hence can glorify or destroy once appearance. Even a simple silhouette may be enhanced by using effective colour schemes. As texture is the feel, drape and degree of stiffness and softness of the fabric, it also creates a visual effect upon the wearer, given a small swatch of fabric, the designer can visualize the texture and the feel of the fabric which helps him to design further.

(i) Warm and cool hues: Hue may be described as warm or cool. warm hues are those seen in fire. They are red, yellow and orange, cool hues are those found in water and sky, they are green, blue and violet. The warmth or coolness of a hue carries with it an illusion of visual height. The warm hues yellow, orange and red are known as advancing hues because they create an illusion of moving forward. Warm hues make objects, shapes or areas appear larger, more important and closer than other colors. Warm hues emphasize the body size and contours. cool hues make objects, shapes or areas appear smaller less important and further away than other colors. cool colors minimize body size and shape.

Value describes the lightness or darkness of a color. To change the value of a color white or black must be added, which makes the color lighter or darker.

(ii) Value related to Body size and form : Applying value in clothing selection is most important. Exiting and dramatic effects and clever body camouflaging can be crated by the use of value in clothing selection.

The extremes of value, very light or very dark or very low values will out line or silhouette the objects, shapes or areas and make the body contours standout white is the lightest value, black is the darkest value white and black garments are generally strong contrasts to their back ground, especially during day light hours. Because night lighting is low in value compared to day light, darker - value clothing worn in the evening usually blends in to the background. The effect of the value of the color against a background is important for those who do not wish to reveal their body conformation.

Chroma or Intensity: Chroma describe the purity of a color and is expressed as the strength or weakness, the brightness or dullness, or the degree of saturation of a color - chroma and intensity are often interchangeable but, because chroma is the more accurate term, it appears more frequently in color literature. High chroma colors are pure, strong, brilliant saturated colours. Low chroma colors are muted, weak, grayed and dull. Bright, strong, high-chroma colors are conspicuous and make the body appear larger. Dull, weak low-chroma colors are less conspicuous and make the body appear smaller.