The Müller formula

With these colour-combinations it can be predicted that the ones on the left will be regarded as ugly by most people, while the ones on the right will be appreciated. How is this possible?
Let’s first take a look at a colour circle. We’ll notice that yellow, for instance, is a lot lighter than blue. On a scale form 1 to 100, primary yellow will will have a lightness value of 90, while primary blue will have a value as low as 35. This way, every hue has its own ‘natural’ lightness.

If we take an NCS colour circle and replace the hues by a corresponding grey of the same lightness, the differences in lightness are apparent in one glance.
Of the colour-combinations that are shown above, the middle ones have three colours of the same hue. The combinations on the right side have a small deviation in hue. In the brown combination the lighter brown has an offset towards yellow, the darker brown towards red. The same goes for the blue combination: dark blue has an offset towards purple, light blue towards green. Therefore one could say that the combinations on the right are according to the ‘natural’ lightness of hues. After all: according to the colour circle, yellow is lighter then red, and in the brown combination the yellow-brown is lighter than the red-brown. The circle also tells us that green is lighter than purple: the green-blue is lighter than the purple-blue. So if the lightest colour in a combination is also the lightest according to the ‘natural’ lightness of the hue, the combination is usually perceived as ‘nice’.
On the other hand: a colour combination composed of colours that contradict the ‘natural’ lightness of hues, is usually perceived as ugly. This is what happens with the combination s on the left. The lighter brown has an offset towards red, the darker brown towards yellow. The light blue towards purple, the dark bleu towards green.
And so Müller proved that taste is far more predictable then we tend to believe.

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