Texture is a surface’s tactile quality. Tactile refers to the perception of touch. In design, texture appeals to sight as well as touch.

 The way an object feels and looks.  May be rough, smooth, shiny, hard, soft, ribbed, crinkled, velvety, prickly, furry, silky, wooly, bumpy, coarse, etc.  Formal ◦ Smooth texture  Informal ◦ Rough texture

 Texture = how a surface feels to the touch or how the surface looks like it would feel to the touch.  Appeals to sight as well as touch.  Patterns and Colors are used to create the illusion of texture.

 Often patterns or colors are used to create the illusion of texture.  Texture can affect color by intensifying or subduing it.  Smooth Textures = reflect more light than rough surfaces, making them look lighter and brighter.  Rough Textures = absorb more light, making them look darker and less intense.  EX: Red carpet looks darker and duller than red ceramic tile. vs.

A room with the same texture throughout is monotonous, but too many different textures can appear disjointed and distracting. Most well-designed rooms have a dominate texture with accents of contrasting textures.

 A balance of textures is needed in a well designed room.  A room decorated in the same texture all the way throughout is Monotonous.  Too many textures can look disjointed and distracting.  The idea is to have a dominant texture with contrasting accents.

Tactile vs. Visual Texture  Tactile is texture we can feel… there is variation in the surface.  Using a variety of tactile textures in a room can add visual appeal.  Visual is texture we only see… there is NO variation in the surface.  Visual texture is sometimes applied on walls using a faux paint finish.

Basic Color Terminology Color Technically it's the wavelength of light reflected by something which then enters your eye and is processed by your brain. This means the color is influenced by the light surrounding the item, what the item is made of, the ability of your eye to see and your brain to process color, etc. Which is just a fancy way of saying every person sees every color a bit differently!

Color Is one of the most important elements of design. Each color has three characteristics: hue, value, and intensity.

Color wheels,(which are an organization of color) typically have the hues on the outer edge of the wheel, then add windows to show the colors which result when other hues or colors are mixed with them.

Primary Color Any one of the several colors which generally cannot be mixed using other colors. One set of primaries is the traditional primary group we're all taught in kindergarten, of red, yellow, and blue, also written as RYB. Another set of primaries is the Printer's Primary, of magenta, yellow, and cyan, or MYC.

 Those hues produced when two primary colors are mixed. The RYB set of primaries traditionally yield orange, green, and purple. The Printer's Primaries also yield orange, green, and purple.  (The brightest, most vivid green comes from mixing cyan and yellow; most vivid purple from magenta and blue; most vivid orange from red and yellow. Using both sets of primaries in mixing offers the widest range of colors.)

Intermediary Colors Sometimes called tertiary colors, these are colors formed by mixing a primary with the secondary of that primary and another primary. In other words, if you mix blue with green, you get blue green, an intermediary color.

Hue is the name of a color. Red, green and blue-violet are examples of hues. A color may be lightened or darkened, brightened or dulled, but the hue will remain the same.

. The value of a hue can be made lighter by adding white. This produces a tint ( Tint, Any hue mixed with White). Pink is a tint of red, made by adding white to red. *high value: very light--pure yellow is a high value hue, baby blue is a high value color A hue can be made darker by adding black. This produces a shade ( Shade, Any hue mixed with black). Maroon is a shade of red. *low value: very deep or dark--pure purple is a low value hue, maroon is a low value color.

Intensity is the brightness or dullness of a hue. Adding some of its compliment can lower the intensity of a hue. The compliment of a hue is the color directly opposite it on a standard color wheel. Examples of high intensity colors include hot pink and fire-engine red. Low intensity colors include rust and smoky blue.

Color schemes look best when one color dominates. Dominate color should cover about two-thirds of the room area. An equal split between areas of dominate and subordinate color is far less pleasing.

Neutrals Colors which technically aren't colors, such as white, black, and gray, are called neutrals. Other colors may also be considered neutrals, such as various browns, because they can work as backgrounds to the major colors of a project.

Temperature The apparent warmth or coolness of a color. Temperature is a relative term. Yellow is generally considered a warm color, but there are both warm yellows (yellow with a touch of red--butter yellow, for example) and cool yellows (yellow with a touch of blue, like lemon yellow). The same can be said of any other color. Cool (Blue, Green, Purple) colors tend to recede while warm colors (Yellow, Orange, Red) appear to come forward in a piece.

A group of colors which are used in harmony to create a certain effect in a project.

Related Color Schemes: *Monochromatic Color Scheme: A scheme based on a variety of values, saturations, and temperatures of one hue. Pretty safe, but it can be boring. *Analogous Color Scheme: A combination of hues which are neighbors on a color wheel. For example, purple, blue, and green is an analogous color scheme. Safe, but again can be boring unless values are varied.

*Accented Neutral Combine a neutral color with any color on the color wheel.

Contrasting Color Schemes: *Split Complementary Color Scheme The split complementary scheme is a variation of the standard complementary scheme. It uses a color and the two colors adjacent to its complementary. This provides high contrast without the strong tension of the complementary scheme.

*Complementary Color Scheme: Two hues opposite each other on the color wheel. An example might be red with green and yellow and purple. These schemes are easiest to work with when the colors are of similar value.

*Triadic Color Scheme The triadic color scheme uses three colors equally spaced around the color wheel.