I thought the readings for this subject were very informative, because I personally don’t know much about photography or film. I don’t really take a lot of photos either so I never really paid attention too much to how photos could make some people appear. However, when looking back at some older photos my family had I did notice they made everyone with white skin appear brighter and paler than they actually were.
The Psychological Effects of Color reading was the one I enjoyed the most because it provided a lot of information regarding colors and how we perceive them that I never really considered before. I remember in high school we discussed color as symbolism in a writing class, but ultimately dismissed the idea due to the subjective nature of color. I enjoyed getting to read this material and learning about some of the scientifically proven effects that color can have on the body. While I did not write this blog at the time of making my book cover, I did reference this text heavily when designing it. I picked a violet-blue for the main color of the book after discovering one of the emotional responses associated with the color was contemplation. Since the actual paper the design is based on is about contemplation and introspection (in a sense) I wanted to try and make that a strong theme with my design.
I also found Chapter 7 of the textbook to be very useful for this project. I knew the basics of color theory like the color wheel, primary colors, and secondary colors, but the text expands upon it in much more detail than what I was previously taught. I don’t think the art classes I took in high-school even discussed color in as much depth as the text did, which surprised me. The section on contrast was the most useful for me since my book cover had a very saturated color as the main focal point. I wanted to find a way to create contrast with my design that wouldn’t be too much on the viewer’s eyes. The examples provided here assisted me with that.