Nick Harkness, Colour Scientist, NHPL Sydney along with Stephen Westland, Professor of Colour Science and Technology and Dr. Vien Cheung School of Design, University of Leeds welcome you to our online training seminar Colour Made Simple designed to teach the fundamentals of visual colour assessment and instrumental colour measurement for Industry, Design and Research.

Colour Made Simple is ideal for:

  1. Large, medium sized, small organisations and Individuals. It enables good colour understanding and the ability to communicate colour issues within a range of departments e.g. Design, Marketing, Production, R &D plus Sales.

  2. Speaking the same colour language and using the same terminology is critical for product development, creative projects, IP and brand management when colour issues occur.

  3. New comers to an organisation. CMS represents a fast track into the world of colour measurement for a wide range applications.

  4. Universities looking to augment course material or university students seeking to deepen their knowledge on this subject over a wide range of academic disciplines

  5. People with a passion for colour


The are many advantages to an online platform for example:

  1. Available anytime from anywhere, no need to wait until a face to face seminar is planned for your location

  2. No time out for travel with related expense
    |
  3. No time restraints, fits in with busy schedules

  4. Students can work at their own pace without distractions

The content is based on a one-day face to face seminar which Nick Harkness, has been presenting for over 20 years to well over a thousand attendees from a broad range of industries and research institutions. A smorgasbord of colour theory

Professor Stephen Westland has also been presenting similar workshops and we, together with Dr Vien Cheung and Rebecca Harkness have decided to pool resources and offer this as an online seminar. The team from the University of Leeds have produced the online colour exercises which are an integral component of the seminar and are designed to colourfully describe the fundamentals of colour language.

Online attendees sign in individually for the seminar and there is no time limit set by us to complete the seminar which comprises of nineteen chapters. In addition to the colour exercises, there are tests at the end of each Chapters 1 to 18 which have to be completed before proceeding. 

Tertiary, Bachelor, Masters and PhD students can obtain a 50% discount. 

Please notify your course details to [email protected] and we can then issue a discount coupon.

Online help is available by email only with a response time of up to 48 hours.

Check out Participant Reviews  below.


Course Curriculum

  • 1

    1. Introduction

  • 2

    Chapter 1: Colour Equilibrium

    • ICM Chapter 1 Colour Equilibrium

    • Colour Notes from Professor Stephen Westland: Is there a color that two colors can't make?

    • Colour Equilibrium Quiz

  • 3

    Chapter 2: Colour Order and Vocabulary

    • ICM Chapter 2 Colour Order and Vocabulary

    • Colour Order Systems

    • Interactive demo for NCS hue

    • Munsell page demos

    • Further explanation about additive and subtractive colour mixing.

  • 4

    Chapter 3: Colour Vision and Causes of Colour

    • ICM Chapter 3 Colour Vision_Causes of Colour

    • Cause of Colour

    • Colour Vision Quiz

    • Colour Notes from Professor Stephen Westland: How does the trichromatic theory explain color blindness?

  • 5

    Chapter 4: Light

    • Chapter 4: Light

    • Questions about LIght

  • 6

    Chapter 5: The influence of light on colour perception

    • ICM Chapter 5 The influence of light on colour perception

  • 7

    Chapter 6: Other influences on colour perception

    • ICM Chapter 6 Other influences on colour perception

    • Colour Terms

  • 8

    Chapter 7 Surface Appearance

    • ICM Chapter 7 Appearance

    • Surface Colour Phenomena

  • 9

    Chapter 8: From Grassman to CIE 1931

    • Chapter 8: From Grassman to CIE 1931

    • Interactive demo for chroma

    • Colour Notes from Professor Stephen Westland: Why are the prime colours in paint different than that in the spectrum?

  • 10

    Chapter 9: CIELAB

    • ICM Chapter 9 CIELAB

    • CIE Basics

    • Interactive demo for CIELAB hue

  • 11

    Chapter 10: Additional Colour Difference Equations - CMC

    • ICM Chapter 10 Additional Colour Difference Equations_CMC

    • CIELAB

  • 12

    Chapter 11: Additional Colour Difference Equations dE 2000

    • ICM Chapter 11 Additional Colour Difference Equations_dE2000

    • Colour Difference Equations

  • 13

    Chapter 12: Instruments for measuring colour

    • ICM Chapter 12 Instruments for Colour Measurement

    • Colour Measurement

    • CIELAB

  • 14

    Chapter 13: Quality Control Procedures

    • ICM Chapter 13: Quality Control and Colour Matching

    • Quality Control

  • 15

    Chapter 14: Applications for colour measurement A - Z

    • ICM Chapter 14: Applications for Instrumental Colour Measurement

    • CMS CIELAB Colour Circle

    • Colour Notes from Professor Stephen Westland: Is orange a mix of red and yellow or spectral?

    • Colour Notes from Professor Stephen Westland: What color do you get when you mix blue and yellow?

  • 16

    Conclusions and References

    • ICM Conclusions and Bibliography

    • Glossary of Colour Terms

    • CMS_Notes_2020

About the presenter

Presenter

Nick Harkness

Over thirty years experience in colour, appearance and durability testing and education. Past-President of the Association Internationale de la Couleur, FTSC Surface Coatings Australia Professional Grade in Class of Fellow. Nick's extensive knowledge can help control the colour and appearance of your product – from the design stage right through to the end product.

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What others have been saying about this course:

5 star rating

Fantastic Course

Genevieve Rossi

This course is so thorough, in depth and the sections are easy to follow. Highly recommended!

This course is so thorough, in depth and the sections are easy to follow. Highly recommended!

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5 star rating

A thorough course on colour measurement

Patricia Del Favero

I found this course to be very thorough in providing an overview of the history and science behind colour measurement. Very informative and methodical in app...

Read More

I found this course to be very thorough in providing an overview of the history and science behind colour measurement. Very informative and methodical in approach. Well worth the time invested in working through the program.

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5 star rating

Colour Made Simple- Review by elder paint technologist

Lance Kelly

A good overview of colour theory and its application. Only issue of consequence was when completing the colour exercises and achieving a zero error result...

Read More

A good overview of colour theory and its application. Only issue of consequence was when completing the colour exercises and achieving a zero error result, there was no automatic redirect back to the next section of the course.

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5 star rating

The fundamentals of colour science taught in an easy and ...

Tran-Quang Nguyen

I completed the Colour Made Simple Online Training Course after my employer suggested the idea to me. As a development chemist in the coatings industry I fin...

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I completed the Colour Made Simple Online Training Course after my employer suggested the idea to me. As a development chemist in the coatings industry I find it imperative to understand the basics behind the interactions of coloured pigments as part of a topcoat system. Nick Harkness and his team provided me the fundamental tools and resources to learn and udnerstand colour science and how this applies to my day to day tasks in formulation and development. The course was self paced which provided the flexibility to learn and understand the modules completely. Furthermore, this allows me to pursue further reading on specific topics of interest without feeling rushed. It was very interesting to learn the history and evolution of colour science and how psychology plays a key role in colour theory, in addition to learning the science and mathematics of colour equations. Some modules had exercises linked, which allow for application of learned knowledge from the lecture and also for increased memory retention of certain concepts. Furthermore, the further reading page provides helpful resources to expand and investigate certain topics after the course was completed. Some helpful feedback to improve this course would be: > For the notes/slides for each module be made available for download as it was sometimes difficult to take constructive notes whilst watching the lecture. It would also allow me to revisit notes made at a later time. > Furthermore, adding some emphasis on the application of CIELAB/CMC equations to different industries, as I was made aware that the weight of constants for CIELAB2000 may be different according to the end purpose, so some examples where this may be the case will help with understanding and retention. > Some information regarding how the chemical and physical properties of pigments can change depending on how it is processed. It would also be nice to be provided a general overview on inorganic pigments too. > Some more application, examples and interactive exercises would be preferred, especially applying information regarding metamerism and colour assessment. Overall I did enjoy the colour course, and I found it useful for my purpose of understanding colour and visual assessment and how I can apply this theory into areas of my development work.

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5 star rating

Colour Made Simple Review

Karen Coull

This was an amazing introduction to the complex and very interesting topic of the effects and differences amongst colours. Some of the topics covered became ...

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This was an amazing introduction to the complex and very interesting topic of the effects and differences amongst colours. Some of the topics covered became very technical and it was a good insight into how involved the measurement of colour becomes- it would take some time and experience to become very proficient at this skill. The Colour Made Simple course was very comprehensive and served to whet the appetite to read more about colour - good references were supplied. I really enjoyed the course and thought the presentation was excellent. Thank you for providing this course online.

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5 star rating

Colour Made Simple on line course

Bill Genigiorgis

Color made Simple on line course, is excellent in visual aspect, course covered all areas relating to color in a fairly simple manner and simple access to th...

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Color made Simple on line course, is excellent in visual aspect, course covered all areas relating to color in a fairly simple manner and simple access to the course at any time any where with internet. .

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