A Study of Colour Harmony for Two-colour Combinations

Li-Chen OU*, Ming Ronnier LUO**

* Colour & Imaging Institute, University of Derby, Kingsway House, Kingsway, Derby, DE22 3HL,
UNITED KINGDOM, l.c.ou@derby.ac.uk
** Colour & Imaging Institute, University of Derby, Kingsway House, Kingsway, Derby, DE22 3HL,
UNITED KINGDOM, m.r.luo@derby.ac.uk

Abstract: Colour harmony has been an important factor for colour planning. A general consensus has been reached in
the definition of colour harmony, as suggested by Judd and Wyszecki [1] that when two or more colours seen in
neighbouring areas produce a pleasing effect, they are said to produce a colour harmony. In the present study, a
psychophysical experiment was carried out to study colour harmony, in which colour samples were systematically
selected on the basis of Berlin and Kays 11 universal colour names [2]black, white, grey, red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, purple, pink, and brown. These colour samples generated a total of 1431 colour pairs to be assessed in the
experiment, which was conducted on a properly calibrated CRT display at a dark room. The colour pairs were shown
one by one on the display as two colour squares placed next to each other, with a uniform medium grey as the
background colour. In the experiment, a 10-point scale of harmonious-disharmonious assessment was adopted for data
collection on the forced-choice basis. Seventeen subjects, including 11 males and 6 females, each with normal colour
vision, took part in the experiment. Experimental results indicate that colour harmony was affected by the three
colour-appearance attributes, hue, lightness, and chroma. From these attributes, four colour-harmony factors were
revealed and were used to develop a colour science based colour-harmony model for 2-colour combinations.
Keywords: colour harmony, colour psychology, colour planning, colour design

1. Introduction
As an important factor of colour planning, colour harmony has long been of interest to researchers in various
fields. Many of early studies on colour harmony focused on the development of colour-harmony principles on the
basis of a well-defined hue circle or a colour solid. For instance, Goethe [3] suggested that colour harmony could
be created only if colours were selected from both sides of his hue circle. Ostwald [4] saw colour harmony as
order. Based on his colour solid Ostwald developed a number of colour-harmony principles. Munsell [5]
suggested that balance was the key to creating colour harmony. Based on the Munsell colour solid, a variety of
colour harmony principles were developed, in which Munsell N5 was used as a balance point to make harmonious
combinations. Itten [6] in his colour harmony theory indicated that colours would harmonise if their positions in
his hue circle formed a well-defined polygon, such as dyads, triads, tetrads, and hexads. Moon and Spencer
[7-9] suggested a colour harmony model in which colours would harmonise if the colour difference between
individual colours in a uniform colour space appeared unambiguous.

One of the drawbacks of these studies is that they can be applied to only a limited number of colour
combinations. This is because colour harmony can be affected by many different factors. For instance, Judd and
Wyszecki [1] identified a number of variables that could influence colour harmony: the absolute and relative size
of areas covered by colours, the shape of elements of a design, and the meaning or interpretation of a design. Thus
the present study focuses on the colours with a specific shape and a fixed size, under a certain viewing condition.
By taking advantage of a uniform colour space such as the CIELAB [10], all the colour samples were selected
systematically in order to give a good coverage in the colour space.
Another difficulty of colour harmony research is the problem of combining more than two colours. On this
issue Hrd and Sivik [11] identified the three factors: the relationship between the area sizes of individual colours
in a colour combination, the perceptual similarities or dissimilarities between individual colours, and the order
rhythms of individual colours in a colour combination. These factors make it complicated to study colour
harmony for more then two colours. Therefore, the present study focuses on only 2-colour combinations.
The definition of colour harmony is also a problem in colour harmony research especially for those developing
the colour-harmony models based on quantitative evaluations. An objective definition of colour harmony was
given by Judd and Wyszecki [1]: when two or more colours seen in neighbouring areas produce a pleasing effect,
they are said to produce a colour harmony. The keywords pleasing effect was adopted in the present study as
the operational definition of colour harmony.
In the present study, a psychophysical experiment was carried out to collect quantitative data of colour
harmony. From these data the relationship was clarified between colour harmony and the three colour appearance
attributes, hue, lightness, and chroma. Several colour-harmony factors were revealed, and a colour science based
colour harmony model for 2-colour combinations was developed.

2. Method
A psychophysical experiment was carried out to investigate
colour

harmony for two-colour combinations.

In the

white

experiment 1431 colour pairs were used for the assessment of

colour harmony. The colour pairs were generated by
combinations of 54 colour samples, which were systematically

light
grey

light
greyish

pale

medium
grey

greyish

dull

dark
grey

dark
greyish

dark

selected from the CIELAB colour space, so as to cover Berlin

and Kays 11 basic colour names [2]black, white, grey, red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, and brown. The 54
colour samples included 5 achromatic colours and 49
chromatic colours. The latter comprised seven hues, including
red, orange, yellow, green, bluish green, blue, and purple, each

vivid

consisting of seven tones: vivid, pale, dull, dark, light-greyish,

greyish, and dark-greyish, as shown in Fig 1. The seven tones
were determined in reference to the Practical Color Co-

black

ordinate System, known as the PCCS [12]. The five

achromatic colours were white, light grey, medium grey, dark
grey, and black.

Fig 1.

The colour samples in the equal-hue

plane of blue.

Seventeen subjects, including 11 males and 6 females, all with normal colour vision, took part in the
experiment. They were all Chinese students at the University of Derby, UK. The experiment was conducted on a
CRT display, situated at a dark room (so that the CRT monitor provided the only light source). The subjects were
sitting in front of the CRT monitor and were presented with colour pairs on it. A Sequel Chroma-4 colour sensor
was used to calibrate the monitor by applying the GOG model [13], which was to ensure that the colours
displayed will not change over time. A Minolta CS1000 tele-spectroradiometer was used to measure the colour
samples.
Fig 2 shows the screen layout where a colour pair is placed at the centre and ten numbered buttons are lined
under the colour pair. The buttons were separated into two sides, the harmonious side and the disharmonious side.
Each side consisted of categories from 1 to 5, which represented the intensity of harmonious/disharmonious that a
subject would be stimulated by a particular colour pair; the larger the category number, the stronger the intensity.
By pressing one of the buttons the subjects judged how harmonious/disharmonious each colour pair appeared. The
method of categorical judgement [14] was applied. Note that the number of zero was not among these categories.
Thus the subjects were forced to choose either the harmonious side or disharmonious side. A medium grey was
used as the background colour in order to simulate a viewing cabinet environment, in which the medium grey has
been widely used as the background colour. Therefore the experimental results can be compared with those
obtained from the experiments conducted with a viewing cabinet.

Fig 2. The screen layout in which a colour pair is placed at the centre surrounded by the background colour, a
medium grey.

3. Results and Discussion

The experimental data were collected by storing the category numbers judged by the subjects. In the data
analysis the disharmonious categories were transformed into negative values, from -1 to -5. For each colour pair,
category numbers were averaged to determine a colour-harmony score.
Subject accuracy was determined by the Pearson correlation coefficient (r) between the mean category values
(colour-harmony scores) and category numbers given by each subject. The mean accuracy values for male and
female subjects were 0.50 and 0.61, respectively. This indicates that individual female data agreed well with the
colour-harmony scores, and the agreement was slightly greater than that of the male data.
From the colour-harmony scores obtained, several factors were discovered that showed significant effects on
experimental results. These factors were modelled in terms of the three colour-appearance attributes and the
mixtures of them.

3.1. Quantifying the Factors That Affect Colour Harmony

Four factors were found dominating the colour-harmony scores, as described below:
(1) Chromatic difference ( C ). This combines the effects of equal-hue and equal-chroma principles, and is
determined by hue difference and chroma difference between component colours. Experimental results
indicate that the smaller the C , the higher the colour-harmony score, as shown in Fig 3 (a). This means that
the colours with both similar hue and similar chroma would harmonise. The chromatic difference C had a
nonlinear relationship with the colour-harmony score, as shown in Eq (1). The symbol H C represents the
colour-harmony score predicted by C if other colour-harmony factors are held constant.
H C = 1.3 0.07C + 0.0005( C ) 2

(1)
1

where C = [(H *ab ) + (C *ab / 1.5) ] 2

2

H * ab : CIELAB hue difference between component colours, and

C *ab

: CIELAB chroma difference between component colours.

(2) Lightness sum ( L sum ). This is determined by adding together the lightness of component colours, as stated in
Eq (2). The larger the lightness sum, the higher the colour-harmony score, as shown in Fig 3 (b). The
lightness-sum effect was also found significant even if other colour-harmony factors were not held constant.
L sum = L *ab ,1 + L *ab , 2

(2)

where L * ab,1 and L * ab, 2 are CIELAB lightness values of colour samples 1 and 2 in a colour pair.
(3) Lightness difference ( L ). The lightness difference is determined by the absolute difference of lightness
values between component colours, as stated in Eq (3).
L = L *ab ,1 L * ab, 2

(3)

In contrast to the lightness sum, this factor had a nonlinear relationship with colour-harmony score. As shown
in Fig 3 (c), both too small and too large size of lightness difference would lead to low colour-harmony scores.
A high colour-harmony score was obtained only if the colour pair had a moderate size of lightness difference,

as far as other colour-harmony factors were held constant. This relationship is presented by Eq (4), where
H L represents the colour-harmony score predicted by L when other colour-harmony factors are held

constant.
H L = 0.92 + 0.05L 0.0006( L) 2

(4)

Note that this effect occurred only when other colour-harmony factors are held constant. It is true that when
lightness difference is low, the probability of high chromatic difference is higher than that when lightness
difference is high. However, different probabilities of a certain amount of chromatic difference do not affect
the prediction of colour harmony, but simply indicate the aspects of the CIELAB colour space.
(4) Hue effect ( H ). The colour pairs that contained bluish colours tended to harmonise, as shown in Fig 3 (d).
This does not necessarily deduce any connection between yellowish colours and low colour-harmony scores.
Instead, a low colour-harmony score often occurred when a colour pair contained reddish colours. The hue
effect H is determined by hue angle of a single colour, as stated in Eq (5). The value of H indicates the
mean colour-harmony score for a specific hue angle hab combined with all the other hue angles.
H = 0.23 0.35 sin(hab + 0.83) 0.18 sin(2hab + 1.55)

(5)

Colour Harmony

Colour Harmony

where hab : CIELAB hue angle of a component colour.

1
0
-1

1
0
-1

-2

-2

-3

-3

-4

-4
-5

-5
0

25

50

75

100

Chromatic Difference ( C )

50

(a)

(b)

150

200

1.0

Average Colour Harmony

5
4
3

Colour Harmony

100

Lightness Sum
Lightness
Sum ( Lsum )

Chromaticness Difference

2
1
0
-1

0.5

0.0

-0.5

-1.0

-2

60

120

180

240

300

360

-3

Hue Angle (h ab )

Hue Angle ( hab )

-4
-5
0

25

50

75

100

Average CH

Model (Hb)

Lightness
Difference ( L )
Lightness
Difference

(c)
Fig 3.

(d)
The four crucial colour-harmony factors: (a) chromatic difference, (b) lightness sum, (c) lightness difference, and
(d) hue effect. The broken lines represent the best fitted lines to the four effects.

The sum of H values for both component colours predicts the colour-harmony score H H provided that other
colour-harmony factors are held constant, as stated below.
H H = H 1 + H 2

(6)

where H 1 and H 2 are the hue-effect values for colour samples 1 and 2 in a colour pair.
3.2 Modelling Colour Harmony
A colour-harmony model was developed by combining together the above four factors. This is done simply by
adding up the values calculated from Eqs (1), (2), (4), and (6), since the four factors were found independent from
one another. The formula is given in Eq (7).
CH = 2.2 + 0.03L sum + H C + H L + 1.1H H

(7)

The predicted colour-harmony scores ( CH ) range from -5 to 5. The predicted values were compared with the
visual data in the experiment, as shown in Fig 4, where each point represents a colour pair. The two axes indicate
the predicted value and the visual result of colour harmony. This diagram shows that the model has good
performance of prediction, with the multiple correlation ( R 2 ) of 0.73. This model will be tested with different
data sets in future work.

4. Conclusions
According to the experimental results, several colour-harmony

described below.
(1) Equal-hue principle. This is one of the most famous rules
among the

traditional colour-harmony

principles,

and

according to current experimental results it has a great

influence on colour harmony. On the basis of the chromaticdifference effect ( C ), this principle is further strengthened
when the colour pair considered also has the equal-chroma

Visual Result (Colour-harmony Value)

principles for two-colour combinations were developed, as

R 2 =0.73

4
3
2
1
0
-1
-2
-3
-4
-5

property.
(2) High lightness principle. Experimental results show that the
lighter the component colours, the higher the colour-harmony
score. This has been modelled by the lightness sum ( L sum ),

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

Predicted Value by the Model

Fig 4. The performance of prediction of the

model developed.

which implies that people tend to feel pleasant when seeing lighter colours combined together.
(3) Moderate lightness-difference principle. The effect of the lightness difference ( L ) indicates that neither
extremely small nor extremely large size of lightness difference should be taken as making harmonious colour
combinations. However, this effect may be not significant if the above two principles are also applied. For
instance, a colour pair with high lightness for both component colours will possibly be seen as harmonious,
although their lightness difference is small.
(4) Blue principle. Blue has been widely regarded as the most preferred hue, as far as single-colour preference is

concerned [15-17]. This may be one of the reasons why colour pairs consisting of blues tended to harmonise.
However, like the principle of moderate lightness difference, this effect can be ignored when the top two
principles are applied.
Note that these findings were based on two-colour combinations and were obtained from a well-controlled
experiment, which was conducted on a CRT display, situated at a dark room. In addition, the colour shape used in
this study was fixed to square, with the background colour of a medium grey. Therefore, the findings may not
necessarily be applicable to the conditions deviated from those in the current experiment. All the limitations in
this study will be taken into consideration in the future work.

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