More Musings on Color

Continuing from where we left off, here I present a variety of systems for representing colors.

Patterns

The study of heraldry uses a limited palette of colors and patterns called tinctures. Tinctures are further divided into metals, colors, and furs, and each metal or color has a corresponding pattern used in monochromatic contexts. The universally-accepted metals are argent (white) and or (yellow), and the universally-accepted colors are gules (red), purpure (violet), azure (blue), vert (green), and sable (black). There are occasionally seen patterns for ash (light gray), iron (dark gray), and proper (of an object depicted as it appears in nature, rather than in one or more tinctures; its pattern is used below for fawn).

Determined as ever to take everything I encounter to its logical or even illogical conclusion, I associated overlaid patterns with the colors between the tinctures they represent: or and gules for orange, gules and purpure for magenta, purpure and azure for indigo, azure and vert for cyan, and vert and gules for brown (what you get from mixing red and green). This set of colors is the basis for the set of generic flags in Kreative Vexillo.

Letter	Name
W	White	Argent
Y	Yellow	Or
O	Orange
R	Red	Gules
M	Magenta
V	Violet	Purpure
I	Indigo
B	Blue	Azure
C	Cyan
G	Green	Vert
N	Brown
F	Fawn
X	Gray
	Iron
K	Black	Sable

This set of colors also bears a striking resemblance to the 4-bit system color palette from Mac OS Classic, which does not include indigo but does include a much more useful additional green and gray.

Symbols

For some reason, I decided one day to create a system of symbols for representing colors. I may have been inspired by the symbols for colors in the D'ni script from the Myst series. (Let that be a lesson: sometimes inspiration is a dangerous thing.) I wanted to keep it simple, so I chose to use only basic shapes (circles, triangles, and squares) and things you don't have to count (no more than 4 of anything, whether dots or lines or polygon sides). Synesthetically, circles have always seemed rather yellow to me, triangles green, and squares blue, so I started there. I also wanted at least one bit of it to at least appear to be grounded in reality, so I took a symbol already used to represent the sun (a circle with a dot inside) and used it to represent yellow (the color of the sun).

In the resulting system, circles are used to represent warm colors (red, orange, yellow), triangles are used to represent "natural" colors (brown dirt, green grass, cyan sky), and squares are used to represent cool colors (blue, violet, magenta). The more lines appear inside the shape, the darker or deeper the color (red, brown, blue vs. yellow, cyan, magenta). There are enough symbols for the 8 primary and secondary colors, the 8 tertiary colors, white, gray, black, and 3 browns (the "set of 22"); there are also 5 more symbols reserved for special purposes.

Warm Colors				Natural Colors				Cool Colors
Swatch	Symbol	Letter	Name	Swatch	Symbol	Letter	Name	Swatch	Symbol	Letter	Name
		W	White			X	Gray			K	Black
		R	Red			N	Brown			B	Blue
		O	Orange			G	Green			V	Violet
		Y	Yellow			C	Cyan			M	Magenta
		S	Scarlet			F	Fawn			I	Indigo
		D	Gold			A	Aquamarine			P	Purple
		H	Chartreuse			Z	Azure			E	Rose
		L	Warm White			T	Transparent			Q	Opaque
		J	Infrared			@	Imaginary			U	Ultraviolet

Letters

Even before I ever thought of symbols, I often thought about using letters to represent colors. There are already many common instances of this, such as in the names of the RGB and CMYK color models and in the mnemonic ROY G BIV, but I thought I could expand it further, to its most ridiculous extreme. I've used various mappings of letters to colors in my personal projects over the years, but each time I did it a little differently; so when I created my system of symbols, I decided to nail down the letters as well.

The colors I represent with letters are the same "set of 22" I represent with symbols (the 8 primary and secondary colors, the 8 tertiary colors, white, gray, black, and 3 browns). Also like with the symbols, there are some letters reserved for special purposes.

Of the 27 total colors (or "colors"), 16 are assigned to their initial letters (white, red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet, magenta, scarlet, aquamarine, indigo, purple, fawn, ultraviolet, and transparent), 4 are assigned to their final letters (black, brown, gold, and rose), and 3 more are assigned to another letter in their name (chartreuse, azure, and opaque). The L for warm white comes from lamps; the J for infrared comes from the historical use of J as a variant of I; and @, not being a letter at all, is appropriate for imaginary colors, not being colors at all. (Appropriate symbols for specific imaginary colors could be #, the octothorpe, for octarine, or $ for squant.)

(Relatively little-known fact: the K in CMYK actually stands for key, not black.)

Primaries & Secondaries				Tertiaries
Swatch	Symbol	Letter	Name	Swatch	Symbol	Letter	Name
		W	White			L	Warm White
		X	Gray			F	Fawn
		K	Black			N	Brown
		R	Red			S	Scarlet
		O	Orange			D	Gold
		Y	Yellow			H	Chartreuse
		G	Green			A	Aquamarine
		C	Cyan			Z	Azure
		B	Blue			I	Indigo
		V	Violet			P	Purple
		M	Magenta			E	Rose
		J	Infrared			T	Transparent
		U	Ultraviolet			Q	Opaque
		@	Imaginary

Tints Shades & Tones

Concatenated letters can be used to represent mixed colors, so adding W will add white to the color to create a tint, adding K will add black to the color to create a shade, and adding X will add gray to the color to create a tone. I have names for tints and shades of the primary and secondary colors, but not for tones. None of these have patterns or symbols.

Tints			Shades			Tones
Swatch	Letter	Name	Swatch	Letter	Name	Swatch	Letter
	RW	Coral		RK	Maroon		RX
	OW	Corange		OK	Umber		OX
	YW	Lemon		YK	Olive		YX
	GW	Lime		GK	Pine		GX
	CW	Sky		CK	Teal		CX
	BW	Frost		BK	Navy		BX
	VW	Lavender		VK	Eggplant		VX
	MW	Pink		MK	Plum		MX

Relatively Summed Up

Finally, here's a list of all the representations together for some reason.

Primaries & Secondaries

Letter	Name
R	Red	Gules
O	Orange
Y	Yellow	Or
G	Green	Vert
C	Cyan
B	Blue	Azure
V	Violet	Purpure
M	Magenta

Tertiaries

Swatch	Pattern	Symbol	Letter	Name
			S	Scarlet
			D	Gold
			H	Chartreuse
			A	Aquamarine
			Z	Azure
			I	Indigo
			P	Purple
			E	Rose

Grays

Letter	Name
W	White	Argent
	Off-White
	Silver
X	Gray
	Iron
K	Black	Sable

Browns

Swatch	Pattern	Symbol	Letter	Name
			L	Warm White
				Creme
			F	Fawn
			N	Brown

Special Purpose

Swatch	Pattern	Symbol	Letter	Name
			J	Infrared
			U	Ultraviolet
			@	Imaginary (Octarine, Squant, etc.)
			T	Transparent
			Q	Opaque