Tono Theory Part 2

Tono Theory is our ongoing series about color theory and how to create beautiful and professional color themes! Before we introduce color schemes, we need to review the basics. In Part 1 of our Tono Theory Basics we talked about the classifications of each color and how to created each hue. If you missed out on our first Tono Theory, check out Part 1 here.

We've covered the creation of every color in the rainbow, but what about white and black? Or in our case, the Natural and Smoke collections? White and black are not included in the traditional color wheel. In the subtractive color sphere (think mixing paints) white is the absence of color and black is a combination of the primary colors (or some combination of all of the colors if you’re getting fancy). While these colors are extremely important, for that reason they are not included in the color wheel. White and black do give us something incredibly valuable (especially for those of us here on team Tono!), in that they dictate each color's tint, tone, and shade. 

Though technically all Tono colors are tones (we love dusty colors!), each color in the Tono collections is our representation of a tint, tone and shade. To create the tint of a color, you would add white to make it lighter. The tone is made by adding gray to any color. And a shade is the darker version of any color, created by adding black.

So what is saturation? And how does it relate to all of this? Saturation is the intensity of a color. High saturation makes crazy, bold colors. And low saturation results in muted or dulled colors. Since most Tono colors are tones, they tend to have a medium saturation, giving them that dusty quality we love so much. 

Lastly, we come to value. Value is the relative lightness or darkness of a color. While it is easy to confuse value with saturation, value has no bearing on the intensity of a color like saturation. Below is our Storm in a variety of values. Nothing about the color has changed, only the lightness of the hue itself.  

Now that we've gone through the basics, our series will focus on introducing color schemes and demonstrating techniques to make your own custom color stories. Stay tuned for more tips and further exploration into the world of Tono!