Design Nomenclature / Color
Monochromatic
Also called single-hue scheme
- Color
- Composition
- 2D & 3D
A scheme built from one hue, varied only in value and chroma. It cannot fail on harmony, since there is no second hue to disagree with, and so it fails instead on monotony — monochromatic work lives or dies on the value spread it is willing to use.
In practice
Photographers say 'monochrome' for greyscale, which is the opposite thing: greyscale has no hue at all, monochromatic has exactly one.
Not to be confused with
- AchromaticHaving no hue: black, white, and the greys between, sitting on the central axis of any color solid where chroma is zero. Achromatic work is not colorless work — it isolates value and forces the structure into the open, which is why the greyscale proof remains the fastest test of whether a layout is actually working.
- AnalogousA scheme of hues adjacent on the wheel, typically spanning thirty to sixty degrees. Adjacency guarantees agreement and withholds tension, so an analogous palette needs a firm value structure or one small foreign accent to keep from going flat. Nature supplies most of the convincing examples.