The Colorful Identification System

Brian Lawler

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Albert Henry Munsell (1858-1918) developed his color system as a circle with ten segments, arranging colors at equal distance and arranging them in such a way that opposing pairs create a neutral gray (Figure 1). He organized the hues of his hand-painted swatches according to the three variables: hue, value, and chroma.

Figure 1. Munsell’s color identification system began with colors arranged in a circle with five primary and five secondary spokes. He then subdivided the ten into ever-smaller divisions. Any opposing pair of colors, if mixed, creates a neutral hue.
Munsell experimented with tops painted with two colors, then spun the tops to determine if their mixture created a neutral gray color (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Munsell’s spinning tops were painted with complementary colors. When spun, the resulting color would be a neutral gray. Munsell experimented with this technique to perfect his color formulation.
Eventually his color system acquired more sophistication (Figure 3), and after his death, it became an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard for the identification and formulation of pigmented colors.

Figure 3. Munsell’s color notation system is based on a three-dimensional model where the hues are arranged in a circle, as shown above, where value is represented on the vertical, and where saturation is represented by a color’s distance from the hub. Some colors, like yellow, have a greater range of chroma values than others, like purple-blue.
Munsell was a painter, teacher, and pioneer of color science. His work identifying color culminated in the publication of his Color Atlas, the first book of its type to assist with the selection and scientific discussion of color (an original copy of Munsell’s book is currently available at Amazon.com for $756). To this day you can walk into a paint store and order paint according to its HVC components using the Munsell Color Notation system (though the major paint manufacturers have moved to digital systems for identifying colors and mixing paints).
Return to “Review: HVC Color Composer.”