Colour Online

This list of more than four hundred links to free resources on colour began more than ten years ago as a rarely visited page on my teaching website that I started using to record interesting links as I came across them, mainly for my own benefit. I've periodically done some work organizing the list and filling in some gaps, but the coverage is still patchy, even within my own areas of special interest. If you know of any good additional links reflecting a modern understanding of colour and of interest to artists and designers please let me know! (No red-yellow-blue, primary-secondary-tertiary "colour theory" except for the historical section, thank you!). I will be using the list as part of my contribution to the Colour Literacy Project, an international educational initiative jointly undertaken by the Inter-Society Color Council and the International Colour Association to provide age-appropriate colour curricula and state-of-the-art resources for teachers across science, art and industry.

1 Basic Colour Attributes

          • Glossaries
          • What is a Colour?
          • Attributes of Perceived Colour
          • Hue, Lightness and Chroma
          • Hue, Blackness and Chromaticness

2 The Physical Basis of Colour

          • Websites and Videos
          • Online and Downloadable Programs

3 Colour Vision

          • Websites and Online Books
          • Videos
          • Online and Downloadable Interactive Programs
          • Anomalous Colour Vision
          • Visual Illusions and Phenomena
          • Misconceptions about Colour Vision

4 Light Mixing Processes

          • Websites
          • Apps

5 Colourants and Colourant Mixing

          • Pigments and Paints
          • Subtractive Mixing Theory
          • Paint Mixing

6 Colour Order Systems

          • Overviews
          • CIE Colorimetry
          • Munsell System
          • Natural Colour System (NCS)
          • Digital Colour Specification and Spaces
          • Other Systems
          • Interactive Online and Downloadable Programs

7 Digital Colour Technology

8 Colour in Art and Design

          • Websites
          • Colour and Light in Representational Painting
          • Traditional Colour Theory
          • Painting Forums
          • Colour in Architecture
          • Colour in Cinema
          • Colour Scheme Generators

9 Colour and Culture

          • Overviews
          • Colour Naming
          • Colour Symbolism

10 History of Colour Studies

          • Historical Texts Online (selected)
          • Archives of Historical Texts on Colour
          • History of Theories of Colour
          • History of Applied Colour

11 Further Information

          • Glossaries
          • Blogs
          • Link Pages
          • Archives of Scientific Papers
          • Videos
          • Colour Associations