Description
Crisp and clear, high luminance factor. The hues above cannot be satisfactory mixed from other colours in subtractive mixture. They have brilliance, superficiality (not in a derogative sense), and radiation in a sense of seeming to push out or shine out of their bounding shapes.

Psycho-factor
Have an analogy with the flash of intuition and the discharge of impulse.

Aesthetic Effects
1 These colours make excellent focal areas, accents or highlights in a design, e.g. in interiors or display. They are less satisfactory, however, as focuses when they are placed against other very light colours.

2 In large areas at full saturation they are particularly useful for highly stimulating effects where the observer is not going to remain long under their influence.

3 Because of peak visibility and peak impact on the eye, they are useful as danger symbols, for example in diagonal stripes of yellow and black which figures in the international safety codes for marking hazards on machinery.

E xamples

Interiors
Ceilings on a northern aspect of a building can be warmed and brightened with these colours, especially where a formal and not too intimate effect is wanted. Warmer yellows would be more ‘snug’.
Spectacular effects can be achieved with these colours by restricting them to one wall and contrasting them with white woodwork or shelves diplaying white chinaware for example and/or dark metal or wooden objects of dark woods. More than most colours these need the trained eye of a designer or that of a person with the sense of colour of an artist.

Products
Products in these colours will tend to look rather larger than they really are (see ILLUSIONS). These colours are particularly useful for products intended to be seen clearly at all times, for example in dim lighting, or as focal objects within a scheme of colours of lesser saturation. Kinetic objects, mobiles and small objets d’art of metallic or anodised yellows, Christmas tree decorations, and so on, are specially appropriate in these colours.

To the left are the Golden Yellows.

The deep yellows • Buttercup • Sunflower • Saffron • Metallic gold • Traffic light amber • The brightest of the golden ochres • Cadmium yellow (Cadmium Selenide).

Description
These are the warmest and richest of the yellows, giving an impression of radiant warmth, and the illusion of raising the temperature a few degrees (as also do the reds and oranges). They cannot be satisfactory mixed from other colours.

Psycho-factor
The warmth and radiant energies from these yellows have an analogy with energetic human activity.

Aesthetic effects
As warm and bright colours these are useful in outgoing sympathetic contexts, and can also play an exuberant role in erotic scenarios, especially as stimulant accents or focusses, but also as titillating expanses in larger areas.
The deeper golden yellows are best used where an impression of opulence is needed; metallic golds would come in here, too.
The deeper and less saturated, though still luxuriously warm variants, approach the luscious skin tones called by the Italians ‘morbidezza’ prized for their sensuousness.
Used as the focus of a monochromatic crescendo these hues spread a warm glow over the whole of a colour scheme.

Examples

Interiors
These colours used on ceilings give a warm intimacy; and the brightest and lightest of these colours, buttercup, would be eminently suitable where a warm and inviting atmosphere is required or even where a sensual or erotic element is needed.
Both the golden and lucid yellows go well in corridors, antirooms, resesses and vestibules where one is not exposed to their stimulating effects for too long. They are usually best used sparingly in living rooms, for example in niche or an ingle nook. However, used in a large room, one wall in golden yellow set off with neutrals, for example white and.or silver greys, can be very rich and impressive.

Products
Objects of this golden colour often look best in a heraldic type colour context, for example against hues of high saturation such as turquoise blues, bright reds, purples and so on. They’re also likely to look well against near-neutrals of the same hue (yellow) and of other hues. Gold, as the traditional colour of pictureframes, shows the role it has played in art since Medieval times, one of surrounding and concentrating attention upon anything considered to be of high value.

To the left are the Citrine Yellows.

Mustard • Pepper • Citrine (Mixtures of yellow with black)

Psycho factor
If the stimulant or lucid yellows have an analogy with the orgasmic discharge of impulse, the citrine yellows have an analogy with the constraint of impulse. This makes them appropriate as an expression of reservation. Just as spices are often an acquired taste, so these colours are for some a sign of the unique distinction of the connoisseur, for others they may be nauseous.

Aesthetic effects
The citrine yellows can be used with piquancy as focal areas inside larger expanses of darker registers of the same colours, for example Cinnamon, Khakis, seaweeds.
They can also be used with sophistication for larger areas with focuses of opposites or adjacent colours, such as the magentas, red purples, and vermillion. In this case, the greenish content of the citrine yellows is emphasised by the reds.
On the other hand, the greenness of the citrine yellows can be harmoniously neutralised by optical illusion by contrast with bright greens. Designing with the citrine yellows demands a high degree of discrimination.

Examples

Interiors
Now as an excepted range of colours (mustard etc) for carpets and furnishing fabrics, they are enhanced by reds and purples, and extended by contrast with golden yellows and green.
They are smart against dark woods and neutrals, such as black, white and greys, especially light and middle greys tinged with deep yellow.
Single walls of these colours, or niches and alcoves, can be extremely elegant. Larger areas might be better less intense.

Products
The citrine yellows are very suitable for sophisticated product design in high gloss or matt finish, giving an expensive look. The product, however, needs to be well displayed against an appropriately coloured background - for best contrast, say a tinged neutral, or a fully saturated hue. Turquoise will emphasise its warmth, and red, its greenness.

Finally, the Ecological Yellows.

Ecru • beige • bamboo • sandstone • parchment • most natural self-colours (can be mixed from a golden and / or a lucid yellow with black and white).

Description
Light yellows of low saturation, in other words light greys tinted with yellow. Colours of natural neutrality, where most pure greys give a cold, hard and leaden impression by contrast. In light schemes the ‘eco’ colours are represented by the weak deep yellow; in darker contexts, by the greyed browns (Fawn etc) or the weak citrines (Lizard etc); in the darkest schemes they are represented by the umbers (Raw Umber etc).

Psycho factor
These are the lowest colours on the stimulus gradient. They are non-arousing, even soothing in effect for most observers.

Aesthetic effects
These are especially valuable colours for large areas that are required to be sympathetic and unobtrusive. They will look greyer and more neutral against bright yellows and gold objets d’art, for example, and against strong blues and purples they will appear to have a more saturated yellow edge caused by afterimage. This effect can be pleasant or disturbing according to context.

Examples

Interiors
All the colours in this range will be harmonious with one another, so long as there are clear intervals between their parameters (that is to say so long as the steps are spaced out either in saturation, dark/light value or hue difference). The ‘eco’ colours will provide a good supporting background to brighter warmer hues; but contrasting cold focal points may need transitional framing areas of white, grey or gold.

Products
The colours of this range are at their best in natural woods and fibres and earthenware ceramics. These possess colours and textures which do not imitate well in plastic, though it’s possible to produce comparable but different qualities in their own right in the polymers which do not imitate naturalistically.

Continue on to the Orange Array or
Return to 'The Significance and Usage of Individual Colours'.