Roman Liedl's Harmony Theory

Roman Liedl has not reinvented the wheel, but he founded his theory on the ideas of all the different color theories. What is new about Roman Liedl's harmony theory is the "method of maximum contrasts", which is described on the following pages. This harmony theory (Roman Liedl: Die Pracht der Farben, illustrated with example pictures by S.N. Armerstorfer) lays down fixed rules for color design. These rules aim at obtaining a harmonic color composition.
 
But you should not let yourself be mislead: A color design bound to norms is far more difficult to realise than a color design without rules, where all colors can be distributed arbitraryly. Anyway, the color choice is often limited by practical constraints, because there are objects on the web site whose color is fixed and cannot or shall not be changed.

"It is exactly these departures from any norm, however, that arouse interest and curiosity. An experienced designer must be able to use both ways to make a decision: the conventional as well as the innovative way."
Hans Gekeler

To be able to depart from the norm, we have to know the norm. Though, harmonic and striking elements do not necessarily exclude each other: A design can definitely contain elements in flashy colors without automatically being unharmonic. It is decisive how these striking components are embedded in the color surroundings - and this is exactly the strong point of harmony theory: It refers to the overall effect of a color design.

Automatically beautiful?

Are web sites automatically beautiful, if they contain a harmonic color composition?
With the help of harmony theory we will surely find colors that match each other. But this does not yet imply that the finished web site "has an effect". Too many other factors influence the esthetic effect: We would certainly not want to eat a grilled and crisp chicken that has been dyed pink with food color and that has green dots all over. The colors would seem totally repulsive and inappropriate to us.
The color effect is therefore not only dependent on the color choice. Color associations, the distribution of the colors on the surfaces and the design of shapes play a relevant role. If we felt like eating sweets, a pink marzipan pig with a green ribbon around its neck would probably appeal to us.

And if only one color is used?

Monochromatic web sites are very effective. With these compositions, harmony theory becomes unnecessary, even if a color is brought in with all its shades, e.g. if a web site is completely kept in green/turquoise/cyan. But since we know about harmony contrasts, we are aware of this monochromaticism, and we thus can use the secondary colors in a targeted way.
The same applies to combinations of a color with black, white or gray: You don't need to worry about color harmonies, because in these cases it is contrasts, spatial arrangement, distribution of surfaces and the shape of surfaces that decide whether a web site is harmonic or not. The best example for this are web sites which are completely kept in black and white: Just as black-and-white photographies, these web sites have a particular charm.
The first definition of harmony theory will follow on the next page: the angular contrast.