Third Week: Fun with Monotone and Duotone Colors

For most of my adult career I have worked in education or non-profit industries. (I guess you could say that education is non-profit.) And because each field had little financial resources, I needed to be creative when designing brochures and other print materials. The companies I worked for didn't have the money to print glossy, four-color informational pieces. Instead, black and white and two- and three-colored images were used often.

As stated in chapter 7 of Williams, you don't always have to create pieces using all of the colors of the rainbow. You can use monocromatic colors - a color composed of one hue with any other of its cooresponding shades or tints.

I have created my own examples to show the differences of applying one and two colors to a black and white photograph.

Black & White Photograph (one color used - black)

Monochromatic Colored Photograph (one color -brown; R=153, G=102, B=0)

Duotone Colored Photograph (two colors - black and red; Red was R=200, G=0, B=0)