TEMPERATURE CREATES RELATIONSHIPS

Warm and cool colours do more than determine whether someone has a “warm” or “cool” undertone.

Temperature creates visual relationships.

Warm colours tend to feel more advancing.

Cool colours can feel more receding.

But temperature is relative.

A red can be warm beside violet and cool beside orange.

A taupe can appear neutral until it is placed beside a strongly warm brown.

Therefore:

Temperature should be judged comparatively, not absolutely.

This becomes extremely useful in editorial makeup.

A cool taupe contour beneath a silver highlight creates a very different emotional world from a warm bronze contour beneath a gold highlight—even if the placement is identical.

The technique has not changed.

The visual language has.