The European Chemicals Agency (ECA) have announced bans on certain coloured tattoo inks from January 2022.
Tattoo inks and permanent make-up often contain hazardous substances that cause skin allergies and may even be carcinogenic. Ink pigments can also migrate from the skin to the lymph nodes and the liver. Even the removal of tattoos can be dangerous because the laser that is used may break down the pigments into smaller substances which may themselves be dangerous.
Safer alternatives are not available for two particular pigments: Pigment Blue 15:3 and Pigment Green 7. These pigments are both copper complexes and are also known as Phthalocyanine Blue and Phthalocyanine Green. The ban will be enforced by Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) who may give ink manufacturers a year to find safe alternatives for these two coloured inks according to some reports. Some people doubt whether the restrictions are really necessary and here is a video from the perspective of a tattoo artist. And here is an open letter of concern from the European Society of Tattoo and Pigment Research.
There is a need for more research and a greater understanding of the effect of these tattoo inks on the body and especially the long-term effects.
Colours have meanings. By that I mean that when we see colour we are reminded of certain things. There is a symbolism which is related to the field of semiotics. This symbolism is, in my opinion, as important – if not more so – than the aesthetics of colour. At least, I think this is often true in design. And it is for this reason that the internet is awash with infographics and blogs that tell us what the meanings are so that we can use them appropriately. This is the sort of thing that we often see:
There is an element of truth in this sort of infographic of course but it’s far too simplistic. Does it explain, for example, why HSBC use red as their brand colour?
Or the use of red in Baxter’s soup packaging?
Of the use of red in packaging of fruit yoghurt?
I don’t think that infographic explains any of these uses of red. Nevertheless, there is design thinking behind the use of colour in each of these cases. However, it is the sort of thinking that requires a deep knowledge of various cultural ideas including traditions and trends. In fact, it is for this reason that I find the use of colour in design (particularly in packaging) fascinating. It’s Boxing Day and my teenage son is still in bed after an all nighter (don’t ask!). So I thought I would tell you what my thinking is about these three examples of the use of red. I apologise in advance that this will be quite a long blog post. So are you sitting comfortably?
Let’s take the use of red by HSBC first. I often see infographics that state that red is a bad choice for a bank.
And if we look at the logos of banks in the UK this certainly seems to hold some truth.
However, what if we look further afield? To Asia, for example.
It turns out that red is an incredibly popular colour for banks in some parts of the world. And this brings us to the first point which is that the meanings that colours have can often depend upon the cultural background of the viewer (or receiver). Whereas I would argue that in the West the colour most associated with good fortune is green, it is undeniable that it is red in many Asian countries, especially in East Asia. It is therefore not surprising that banks often use red for their branding because which bank doesn’t want consumers to be reminded of good luck and fortune when they are thinking of putting some money in the bank or considering some other financial transaction? So, to understand the HSBC colour, we have to understand that although HSBC is a common sight on UK high streets today, the origins of the bank are in Kong Kong and Shanghai. The clue is the name – the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Interestingly, the shape of the HSBC logo is derived from the cross of St Andrew which turns out to be true of many Hong Kong company flags and logos. You can read more about the history of the HSBC logo here. Understanding that colour meanings in one geographical location might not translate to another location is important to avoid making simple, yet potentially serious, mistakes.
Second, we can turn to the use of red in tins of Baxter’s soup. If we look at the Baxter’s tin of soup the thing that stands out to me first of all is the green of the soup. A number of years ago, when I was developing my thinking around colour meaning whilst working with Seahwa Won who obtained her PhD in this topic and is now an academic in Korea, we developed the term original substance colour to explain the observation that for food packaging in particular, we often see the colour of the actual product being represented in the packaging. So we see orange packaging for orange juice, brown packaging for coffee, etc. This idea is never mentioned in the infographics you can find online. Often, the packaging is transparent so that the colour that you see is the actual colour of the product itself.
In this case the transparent packaging allows the colour of the fruit juice to be seen
In this case, the packaging uses orange; the original substance colour of the product
So with Baxter’s soup we have the original substance colour of the pea soup that dominates and starts the design. So what about the red? Well, there are a few things going on here which is often the case. Often, the colours used in a design work so well together in a number of different ways that you can only admire the ingenuity of the design team. There is the fact that the Baxter’s logo is red. I don’t know how long this has been the case – if anyone knows anything about the history of the Baxter logo please let me know in the comments. But we also have a colour harmony. Opposite hues – red and green, in this case – often work well together aesthetically. But if we have a really bright vivid red and a really bright vivid green next to each other then this can be unsettling. That might not be the intended effect here. It’s very often much nicer to have one of the hues quite bold and then have the other much more muted. This only goes to demonstrate another truism which is that colour harmony is about more than just the relationships between hues.
We have a red-green relationship in both cases but the relationship on the right will be seen as more aesthetically pleasing than the one on the right because of the difference in chroma
Finally, there is the fact that Baxter’s is a Scottish company. I don’t know if the tartan shown on the Baxter’s soup label has any connection with the company but that combination of red and green looks very much like the tartan of the Baxter Clan.
So there you have it, you have original substance colour, colour harmony, and the Scottish symbolism of the tartan to remind you that this is a Scottish heritage company all working together. And the pale green background and the dark red text even gives you excellent contrast for legibility. Very beautiful work in my opinion. The point is that something like this
doesn’t even begin to tell you about why these colours are used on the outside of this tin of soup. These infographics are way too simple; not even at undergraduate level to be honest and they are pretty much useless.
Finally we can look at the yoghurt pot. Again, the red is not used because it represents passion, energy, urgency, excitement, vibrancy or danger. It is simple original substance colour again with the red representing strawberries.
Red can mean so many things: original substance colour in many food packages, good luck and fortune in Asian bank logos, emergency and danger in health and safety equipment, stop when it is a traffic light. Yes, it can also mean passion and urgency and vibrancy. But context is everything.
In my teaching at the University of Leeds I often refer to this advertisement for the mini.
What does the red symbolise in this mini commercial?
The combination of red, white and black is aesthetically pleasing. But there are lots of similar combinations that could have been used. But the red is used symbolically. It is the True Blood mini convertible. Feel the wind in your fangs!! Exclusively for vampires. This is excellent colour design because the colours work with the text and the imagery and are consistent with the messages that are intended. The red symbolises blood. And the combination of red, white and black together in this context, with the other cues, indicate vampires!
I hope you found this interesting. It passed a few hours between one Boxing Day meal and the next for me. Leave a comment if you liked it or disagree with my analysis or if you noticed something that I didn’t. If you liked this post, take a look at my earlier holiday post about Christmas colour symbolism if you didn’t see it. Enter your email in the subscription box below to get updates when I post new stuff.
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On Dec 14th 2013 I posted about how the colour of your urine says something about your health (spoiler alert: the lighter it is the better!). Just over three years later I posted something similar, this time about the colour of poop. Let’s just say that you don’t want black.
Perhaps it is the time of year but today I read an article about why poop is brown. However, this time it was in TheConversation. TheConversation is an incredibly good website. It was first produced in Australia in 2011 and is a non-profit media outlet. In the UK it is supported the UK government and a number of UK universities (including University of Leeds where I work) to generate journalistic content that people can trust – academic rigour with journalistic flair.
I have only published in TheConversation once. I was invited to write about the effect of light on colour. I am quite proud of the fact that my article is the fifth most read article of any produced from the University of Leeds. It has 190,225 reads which is approximately 190,220 more reads than most of my academic papers ever achieve. So it’s a great way to get stuff out and have an impact.
However, I was invited to submit the article and even then I went through quite a rigorous process where the editor who is assigned to your case asks for evidence for every claim you make. So it’s not easy to publish there. The upshot of all of this is that TheConversation can be trusted. One of the problems with the current world, imho, is that the freedom that the internet has given us – where anyone can put stuff out there and where the world is no longer controlled by a small number of publishers – needs to be balanced by the problem that anyone can put stuff out there. There is more nonsense written on the internet about colour than almost any other topic apart from, perhaps, COVID, vaccines and masks. I won’t comment about those topics because I know no more about them than you – possibly less. But if you want to read reliable information about anything, written in a clear and simple way by people who study that topic for a living, I cannot recommend TheConversation more highly.
However, back to the more important topic – colour of poop. The article is actually a response to a question that was received from a child in Maryland and is part of a series for children of all ages called Curious Kids.
The brown colour is produced by the bile pigment stercobilin – first isolated from faeces in 1932 – without which poop would probably be very pale, almost white. The presence of this particular pigment in water is sometimes used to detect faecal pollution levels in rivers. So now you know one more colorant; albeit a natural one.
There is a related article about poop and health on TheConversation if you are interested. To make the point about articles in TheConversation being written by people who know what they are writing about they note in their article:
Have you ever wondered what’s going on in your poop? Perhaps not. But this is precisely what we think about every day at the American Gut Project, the world’s largest microbiome citizen science effort, located at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
It’s that time of year again. No – not Christmas. It’s that time when we get announcements about colour of the year. Pantone – the undisputed heavy weight champion of the world – when it comes to such matters has announced that the colour of 2022 is periwinkle.
Maybe it’s just me, but I cannot get excited by the colour of the year. To be fair, it’s not just plucked from nowhere. Colour of the year, like colour forecasting, is the result of a process that links colour to the cultural trends and values of our time – the zeitgeist, if you will. However, there are two reasons why I can’t get excited.
The first is that it is so trite. Colour forecasting is a little better. But just because Pantone have announced this insipid violet colour is the colour of the year, I am not going to be changing my purchasing habits. I won’t be buying purple trousers, a purple volvo or decorating my house in periwinkle any time soon. It seems to me that colour of the year is just a publicity stunt, a marketing device.
The second is that in terms of colour forecasting generally I fall into the camp of people that believe that it does more harm than good. If we take the textile and apparel industry, as an example, our consumption behaviour is simply unsustainable. As noted in fastcompany, our obsession with colour trends is killing the planet.
To be fair, there is another side of the argument. Those on that side would argue that colour forecasting helps companies to produce products in colours that people want and that reduces waste. However, I just don’t buy it. There is scant evidence that colour forecasting ‘works’ at all and the relentless pushing of the idea that we have to keep buying new stuff to keep up with colour trends is harmful in my opinion. Instead of obsessing with colour of the year we should be buying things in colours that we like. We don’t need people to tell us what is trendy. Just buy what you like and stick with it.
At this time of year my thoughts sometimes turn to the colours that we associate with Christmas: red, green, gold, silver and white, in various combinations. One of the things that I sometimes read about is where Father Christmas always had a red suit or whether he had a green one. I note that in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Santa is wearing a dull brownish tunic.
Father Christmas in Narnia
Though apparently according to CS Lewis himself in the book: on the sledge sat a person everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as hollyberries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest.
There are also annual stories about whether the traditional red we now associate with Father Christmas was influenced by Coca-Cola for marketing reasons. So, today I thought I would share this blog post about the truth of Father Christmas and red. It does refer to Coca-Cola who, I believe, had a role in popularising our current image of Santa but were not actually responsible for the colour change. This view is also reinforced by this blog post about Santa and red.
Anyway, the thing I read today that inspired me to write this post is actually this blog post which is about colour symbolism and Christmas.
Finally, if you want to explore the meanings that colours have in a more academic perspective here is a link to two papers that are free to read in JAIC – the Journal of the International Colour Association. One was written by me and Seahwa Won (who was my PhD student at the time) and you can see that one here. The other is written by José Luis Caivano and Mabel Amanda Lopéz, well known colour experts in Argentina, and you can see that here.
I am one of the editors of JAIC – the Journal of the International Colour Association. Next year we are planning a special issue of papers about colour theory. One of the good things about JAIC is that it is a journal in which it is free to publish and free to read. So if you want to read some really good colour content please take a look at it here.
However, next year we are having an issue that will collate papers about colour theory. For this special issue we have appointed the renowned colour expert Robert Hirschler as the guest editor. The call for papers is already open (deadline next August) so you can already submit your papers. To do so please click on the link to the special issue where you will find more information.
I just came across an interesting article that suggests that discolouration of the toes could be one of the earliest signs of high cholesterol. High cholesterol – that often results from poor diet (and I should know!) – can lead to fatty deposits on the inside of arteries and this in turn can lead to blocked blood vessels. One of earliest symptoms, however, is a mottled purple colouration in the toes. For more information from the original article please click here.
My colleague at the University of Leeds, Dr Vien Chueng, who is currently President of the International Colour Association (AIC) recently published this article through the University of Leeds on the influence and impact of colour on the way we live. This is part of a series of articles from the University that address our transformational research and collaborations that are helping tackle global challenges and advancing knowledge to create a better future.
I really like this page by John Lovett about colour mixing.
We all know that you can’t mix all colours by starting from three primaries. You can’t do this in theory and you can’t do it in practice. You can’t do it with additive colour mixing and you can’t do it with subtractive mixing. In fact, with subtractive mixing, the oft-cited primaries of red, yellow and blue are actually not a very good choice.
Mixing red and blue pigments, for example, won’t give you a great purple. You will lose saturation and you almost certainly won’t get the vivid purple that is suggested by many colour wheels. However, John Lovett’s page explains how, if you do start with red, yellow and blue, you can do a little better by understanding that there is not just one blue and one red, for example. If you want to mix yellow and blue you should use a greenish yellow and a grreenish blue. On the other hand, if you want to mix blue and red you should use a reddish blue and a bluish red. This reduces the loss in saturation.
However, although Lovett’s advice is superb, you still can’t make all of the colours this way (though you can make all the hues of course). And arguably what Lovett is proposing is a six-primary system rather than a three-primary system. Lovett ends up proposing a six-primary system in an attempt to make the out-dated idea of RYB work.
It’s quite exciting to announce that this week I founded Colour Intelligence with my colleague Dr Kaida Xiao. We have some quite exciting things planned. It’s my second time running a start-up. I formed Colourware Ltd in about 1994 and I only stopped running that company when I became ultra busy at Leeds University in my professorial role and when I was also Head of School of Design. I can’t say any more about what we have planned just now but hopefully I will be able to do that soon.
