Embossing is simply raising the surface of your design so that it has some depth. It’s the real world equivalent to bevel effects and likely derives from relief sculptures—resembling most closely the bas-relief where the depth is perceived as a lot more than is actually there. The word itself is old French, coming from em (into) and boce (protuberance).

As for how it relates to graphic design—embossing has been used as a finish for high end printed products for hundreds of years. It’s a great way to give your design another dimension that print simply cannot do. Emboss can be used by itself or together with foil, coatings or printing.

How it’s Done

Embossing is done by pressing a sheet of paper (or other substrate) into a female die, that has a design engraved or etched into it. This is usually done with a male counterpart underneath the paper, so that the paper is sandwiched between the two and the design is transferred to the paper.

Although embossing seems to be quite deep visually, it is commonly no more than 15 microns and at most, 25 microns. That’s 25 thousands of an inch. Your average emboss is about 1/64th of an inch. You can see in this photo how the depth of an emboss die affects the appearance of the final piece. Note that as the depth of the die increases, there’s a higher chance of the paper tearing (as can be seen in the “D” of “guide”).

While embossing technically refers to a raised surface, embossing can also be done to create a depressed design in a surface. In the graphic design and printing industry, this is usually referred to as “deboss.” For a deboss, the male and female dies are switched so that the topside (front) of the sheet is pressed with the male die and the female die sits underneath it. When a deboss is registered to printing, one can create the appearance of engraving.

For the most part, presses that do embossing are interchangeable with presses that do foiling. Both processes require a lot of pressure and, for certain effects, a heated plate. Moreover, foiling and embossing are most often done together and so it makes sense to have a machine that can handle both.

Color harmony is the theory of combining colors in a fashion that is harmonious to the eye. In other words, what colors work well together. It is the reason the Hulk wears purple pants. It is the reason the original X-Men had yellow and blue uniforms. It is the reason behind almost all color design decisions.

Color Wheel

Color harmony is based on the concept of a color wheel. You can study up on the history of it here. Essentially, it is a wheel with all the colors formed in a circle. Primary colors are on three equally distanced points of the wheel. Typically these are Red, Blue and Yellow. In the field of painting, where the color wheel originated, these three primary colors were used to mix almost all other colors. In modern printing these are replaced with Magenta, Cyan and Yellow. Black is thrown in to create darker colors, thus C, M, Y, K.

Between the three primary colors on the wheel are their mixed colors—purple between red and blue, orange between red and yellow, green between yellow and blue. Theoretically, all colors feels somewhere on the wheel.

The wheel represents color in a circle. Closer to the middle of the circle, colors are less pure. At the outer edge of the circle, they are more pure and more saturated. In 3D representations of the color wheel, one might add darkness and lightness separate from saturation. The thing that is important to know in color harmony is that how dark or light or how saturated colors are does not affect their position on the wheel. Orange can range from a dark brown, to a bright orange to a pale skin tone. All of these are ORANGE when it comes to the color wheel.

(As a side note, this is a great color wheel for designers to have.)

Key Color

After the color wheel itself, the next important thing to understand is the key color. The key color is the most important color of your design. It is the color you can’t change or the color of the element you want to draw attention to. If you are doing a painting of the Hulk, your key color is green as it is the color you can’t change. If you are doing a photograph of a person, then their skin tone is your key color. If you are doing product photography, then the color of your product is the key color.

When determining your color harmony, you need to first determine your key color. From there, you can look at the various types of harmony and see which one you like best or which best suits your design.

Direct Harmony

This is the most basic harmony. It is a point opposite to the key color on the wheel. This “opposite” color is referred to as the complementary color and thus the direct harmony can also be called the complementary harmony. Virtually all color harmonies (except Analogous) are a variation of the direct harmony. It is the reason the wheel exists as opposed to a different kind of chart.

The high contrast of complementary colors creates a vibrant look especially when used at full saturation but can be jarring if not managed properly. This is the most common color scheme and is easy to find in all sorts of designs. Hulk’s green color has purple as its complementary color—which is the reason he wears purple shorts. Red and green are the Christmas colors and also happen to be complementary colors to each other. In photography, blue is considered the best color to put behind a person as it is the complementary color to skin tone.

Complementary color schemes are tricky to use in large doses, but work well when you want something to stand out. Complementary colors are really bad for text as both colors have a similar “strength” and will fight for attention.

More examples