Determining whether a color is warm or cool is an important concept in color theory. Warm and cool colors can evoke different moods, emotions, and reactions in designs, photography, and art. Understanding how to identify warm and cool tones will help you create color palettes with purpose and intention. In this article, we’ll explain what warm and cool colors are, how to tell them apart, and how they are used in design and art.
What are warm and cool colors?
Warm and cool colors refer to two groups that colors can be divided into based on their position on the color wheel.
Warm colors include shades of red, orange, and yellow. They are energizing and invoke feelings of warmth, comfort, and energy. Warm colors appear to advance in space and capture attention.
Cool colors include shades of blue, green, and purple. They are calming and invoke feelings of tranquility, professionalism, and serenity. Cool colors recede in space and are soothing and passive.
Color temperature is related to how close a color is to red or blue on the color wheel. Red, orange, and yellow hues contain more warm undertones, while blues and greens contain cool undertones. Purples tend to be more neutral as they are a mix of warm red and cool blue.
How to tell if a color is warm or cool
There are a few key ways to determine if a color is warm or cool:
Position on the color wheel
As mentioned above, warm colors sit on the warm side of the color wheel, closer to red and orange. Cool colors sit on the cool side, closer to blue and green. While the color wheel provides a basic visual for seeing color temperature, keep in mind that primary and secondary colors have more clear warm/cool designations, while tertiary colors can be more neutral.
Undertones
Examining a color’s undertones provides important clues about its temperature. Warm colors contain undertones of yellow, orange and red. Cool colors have undertones of blue, green and purple. Neutral colors contain a balance of undertones.
Compare with known warm/cool colors
An easy way is to compare the color against colors that are definitively warm or cool. Hold your color next to a known warm color like red, and see if it feels warmer or cooler in relation. Do the same with a known cool color like blue. This relative comparison helps reveal subtle temperature differences.
Observe reactions
Our eyes and minds tend to have instinctive reactions to color temperatures that can reveal if a color is warm or cool. Warm colors often feel energizing, bold and active. Cool colors feel calming, receding and passive. Observe how you emotionally respond to a color to judge its relative warmth or coolness.
Effects on other colors
Warm and cool colors interact differently with neighboring hues. Warm colors make adjacent colors feel warmer and more advancing. Cool colors make neighboring hues feel cooler and more receding. Seeing how a color influences hues around it can hint at its temperature.
Tips for identifying warm and cool colors
When determining whether a specific color is warm or cool, keep these tips in mind:
– Context matters. A color can read as warm or cool depending on surrounding hues. Blue may appear cool against oranges but warm against other blues.
– Warm/cool is relative. Few colors are exclusively warm or cool. Most contain a mix of undertones that place them on a continuum from warm to cool relatively.
– Brightness impacts perception. brighter, more saturated versions of a color often appear warmer than muted or shaded versions. A bright teal will look warmer than a greyish teal.
– Trust your eyes and emotions. Our innate reactions to color provide important clues about their warmth or coolness. Go with your gut feeling when judging color temperature.
How to use warm and cool colors
Understanding warm and cool color schemes helps inform intentional, effective use of color in design, art, photography, and other visual fields. Here are some examples of using warm and cool colors effectively:
Color harmony
Balancing warm and cool colors creates visually pleasing, harmonious color schemes. Analogous schemes use hues next to each other on the color wheel, creating harmony through similar undertones. Complementary schemes combine opposite colors on the wheel, contrasting warm and cool effectively.
Focus and emphasis
Warm colors attract visual attention and stand out next to cool colors. Using warm tones strategically on focal elements will make them appear more dominant. Cool colors visually recede, so they work well for backgrounds.
Composition and spatial relationships
Warm foreground colors make elements seem closer to the viewer, while cool background colors create depth and distance. Warm colors can be used to signify objects in the foreground, while cool colors suggest farther spatial planes.
Evoking responses
Warm colors elicit excitement, passion, and energy. They work well for lively, vibrant subject matter. Cool colors evoke calmness, serenity and professionalism. They suit tranquil scenes, corporate identities, or serious themes.
Relating to nature
In nature-inspired design, warm colors represent things like sun, deserts, and heat. Cool colors relate to water, ice, sky, and air. Using analogous natural color schemes taps into innate emotional responses.
Examples of warm and cool colors
Here are some examples of definitively warm and cool colors:
Warm colors
| Red | Orange | Yellow |
| Maroon | Peach | Amber |
| Pink | Coral | Gold |
| Burgundy | Terracotta | Khaki |
Cool colors
| Blue | Green | Purple |
| Cyan | Mint | Lavender |
| Navy | Teal | Lilac |
| Azure | Emerald | Orchid |
As shown, primary and secondary versions of red, orange, yellow, blue, green, and purple have clearly warm or cool designations. Tertiary colors like teal or peach contain more color mixtures, placing them in a neutral or transitional warm/cool zone.
Transitionary warm and cool colors
Some colors fall in a neutral transitional zone between warm and cool temperatures. These often contain a mix of warm and cool undertones. Here are some examples:
| Teal | Violet | Chartreuse |
| Periwinkle | Magenta | Amber |
| Terracotta | Turquoise | Vermillion |
| Beige | Mauve | Ochre |
These colors can shift in appearance between warm and cool depending on lighting, nearby hues, saturation, and other factors. Often they contain fairly even mixtures of warm and cool undertones.
Common misconceptions about warm and cool colors
There are a few common misconceptions regarding warm and cool colors to avoid:
– Only primary colors are definitively warm/cool. In fact, clear warm/cool distinctions exist across primary, secondary, and some tertiary colors.
– All light tints are cool, all dark shades are warm. While brighter colors often appear warmer, any hue can be lightened/darkened while retaining its base temperature.
– Warm or cool colors always elicit certain emotions/reactions. Responses to color are subjective and context-dependent. Warm and cool schemes should be thoughtfully used but not presumed to evoke universal responses.
– Colors are either warm or cool. Most colors fall along a continuum from warm to cool, or neutral zone between, rather than having absolute designations.
– Context doesn’t influence color temperature. Surrounding hues, lighting, saturation, etc. can shift a color’s apparent warmth or coolness.
Conclusion
Identifying whether a color is warm or cool is an essential skill in color theory application. Warm and cool colors create different moods in design and art. Knowing how to categorize colors by temperature enables deliberate, impactful color choices.
Remember to consider a color’s place on the color wheel, its undertones, comparisons to known warm/cool hues, and your perceptual responses. Most colors fall along a gradient from warm to cool rather than having absolute designations. With practice training your eye, you’ll be able to skillfully wield color temperature for your creative needs.
