The differences between warm colors and cool colors

Nothing stimulates our lives and our day to day in the same way that color does, whether we are aware of it or not. The simple presence (or absence) of a cold color or a warm color can change our emotions in an instant, make us identify something or on the contrary that we reject it.

The most interesting thing is that the way in which color stimulates us depends entirely on how we perceive it, and that is why the color temperature with the differences between warm colors and cool colors they take a lot of importance; We explain it to you.

• Related article: "The meaning of colors and the emotions they express”

How we see colors

Before we start talking about the differences between warm colors and cool colors, let's give you a quick recount of concepts about how or why we see colors.

The first concept is related to what color means. Well, color is what our eye perceives as result of the interaction of light with our environment. At the same time we have to know that light is made up of different types of electromagnetic waves, and the only ones that we are able to perceive in the form of colors is the visible spectrum.

About color theory

Thanks to this visible spectrum of colors by which our eye can perceive around 10 million colors, the writer Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe formulated color theory, which explains how colors interact with each other to generate many more colors and later determine the differences between warm colors and cold colors.

For this, color theory divides colors into the following two groups:

• Primary colors: Formed by yellow, red and blue, they are the colors that we find in nature and that it is not possible to obtain from other colors. We could say that they are the base colors.
• Secondary colors: Colors such as orange, green, and purple, which are the result of the interaction between the primary colors.
• Tertiary colors: They are those that we obtain by mixing a primary color with a secondary color.

Difference between warm colors and cool colors

In addition to color theory, there are many other properties of color that make our universe of colors infinite. These are hue, intensity, saturation, and brightness or lightness.

There is also another aspect of color that is capable of greatly influencing the way we relate, feel and react to our environment; it is nothing more and nothing less than the color temperature which, as its name indicates, consists of differentiate the colors according to the thermal sensation they generate.

What makes color temperature so interesting is that these color differentiations are based on thermal sensations that are subjectiveIt depends entirely on what our eye perceives and how our brain interprets it so that there are differences between warm colors and cold colors.

Warm colors

Warm colors are those that our brain relates to the sun, fire, passion and heat. Is about those colors ranging from red to yellow, going through oranges, browns, golds and in some cases green, depending on the amount of yellow it has in its configuration.

To make it easier for you to understand when you are in front of colors in which you do not know how to find the differences between warm colors and cold colors, you should know that the more red a color has in its composition, the warmer it will be.

Warm colors are characterized by being vital, energetic, happy, active, passionate and stimulating. In addition to being associated with these concepts, they are also colors that convey comfort, warmth, closeness and intimacy and can be used, for example, to fill spaces.

Cold colors

Cold colors are all those that our brain relates to winter, night, water, sky, seas and cold. Are all those colors that go from green to blue, passing through violets.

Cold colors are characterized by transmitting calm, tranquility, serenity, depth of repose, relaxation, solitude, remoteness, professionalism and a bit of mystery. Other associations of cold colors are with the divine and the eternal, cleanliness, freshness, outdoor life, fantasy, ideas and majesty, in the case of violets.

They are the colors that we use to enlarge and enlarge the spaces. The trick to finding the differences between warm colors and cool colors is that the more blue a color has in its composition, the colder it will be.

Colors with warm and cold undertones

Each color has a range of shades which can make them appear warmer or cooler. In this sense, the best way to see the differences between warm colors and cool colors is to find the primary color that has the main shape.

For example, the green color can be extended in a wide variety of hues, becoming a warm green if it has much more yellow, and a cool green if the predominant color is blue.

Remember when we told you that color temperature is subjective? Well, when we compare a color with other colors, our perception of whether it is warm or cold can change, because that information that reaches our brain is influenced by the context.

For example, if we take a lemon yellow color and compare it with an orange color, we can say that the orange color is warm and the lemon yellow color is cold; However, if we compare these two colors with a deep blue, we will definitely think that both orange and lemon yellow are warm colors and deep blue a cool color.