For more information see http://thecolorrun.com/
Category Archives: fun
homemade colour measurement
Interesting article about a guy who built his own colour-measurement device at home from simple components.
Blog Repost – Edible Pantone colour tarts
Sex, drugs & comics
I am not a great fan of blogs that are predominantly visual – I like words. But I do like Chicquero’s posts. I hope you like this too.
yellow is the new red
I am not the world’s expert on fashion but it seems that red has been popular all through spring and summer. I first came across the surge in popularity of red last year when a journalist contacted me to ask my opinion as to why there had been an increase in sales of red kitchen and personal electronic equipment. We both agreed that probably the choice of red may be caused by consumers using colour choice to be bold and energetic in contrast to feeling tied down and depressed by the financial recession. I then listened to the podcast for Spring 2011 on Color Outlook and learned that red has been a popular colour for interior design this year right across the USA.
Now it seems that red has been a popular fashion colour all summer but is due to be replaced in the autumn (or the fall, as some people strangely call it) by yellow; another vibrant and positive colour. For further details see the Babble blog.
odd coincidence
My name is Stephen Westland and my blog is called Colour Chat – because I like to chat (informally but hopefully in a way that is informed) about colour. Westland is a reasonably unusual name. Searching on google for my own blog today I noticed there is a company called Colourchat Services Ltd in Nairobi – guess what district they are in? Yes – Westlands. Coincidence or what? I wonder what this company does … perhaps they should sponsor this blog! Haha. 🙂
Femke Hiemstra
On the lines and colors blog about drawing I came across a post about the work of dutch artist Femke Hiemstra – http://www.linesandcolors.com/2011/08/21/femke-hiemstra/. Her anthropomorphised animals and fantasy landscapes remind me of Alice in Wonderland. What do you think?
colourful ants
Not sure what to say about this but I really like this picture. A scientist in India has experimented with ants whose transparent abdomens show the colour they have eating. He noticed they went white after drinking milk and then gave them sugar solutions coloured with different dyes. Apparently fond that ants preferred yellow and green solutions – perhaps these are better associated with sweetness. For the full story and some more great pictures see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2022765/The-ants-multi-coloured-abdomens-exactly-theyve-eating.html
do we dream in colour?
I once read that 20th Century research indicated that most people dream in black and white but that modern research reveals that most people dream in colour. The difference is attributed to the fact that in the early 20th century the majority of people spent a long time looking at black and white media. I came across this idea again in The Times today. Sadly, I can’t link to the story because The Times Online is no longer free. Boooo. In fact, I read this in The Review section of The Times today (paper version – I am too mean to pay for the online version). The article stated that a Japanese study published this month by the American Psychological Association found that most people in their sixties dreamt in black and white while the majority of university students (the implication being, I suppose, that these represent a much younger subset of the population) dreamt in rich colour (rich colour – not just colour!). The researchers suggest that younger participants had grown up watching colour TV. However, a psychologist – Ian Wallace – was quoted as saying that he thought this explanation was unlikely sine television represents a tiny part of the visual field and old viewers would have spent far less time watching television that we do today. In fact, the main article was about REM and about how having too much deep REM sleep where we dream could be associated with depression. Anyway, I think it must be very difficult to actually know whether people dream in colour – you could ask them when they wake up, but remembering could, of course, be the result of a false memory.
preferred colours
Many studies have been carried out over the last 50-100 years to look at which colours people like and which they don’t like. Although there is variability between individuals (not everyone likes the same colours) there is surprising consistency when the results of lots of different studies are compared. In short people like blues and greens and don’t like yellows and (to a lesser extent) reds. The hue parameter is probably the most important but brightness and colourfulness also affect colour preference. People tend to like brighter and more colourful colours than darker and less colourful ones. Just for fun, I have been running my own survey on this web site. You can still add your two-penneth worth if you like – please go to http://colourware.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/favourite-colour-poll/. Interestingly, my fun survey is also in broad agreement with all those previously published experiments. I found that people’s preferences were:
blue 19%
green 19%
purple 14%
red 11%
orange 8%
yellow 8%
pink 8%
black 4%
grey 4%
white 3%
brown 1%
other 1%
I am not sure what practical application there could be in knowing which colours are more popular. For example, my favourite colour is red but I probably wouldn’t want to buy a red coat. Though on average most people really like blue, this doesn’t mean it would be sensible to make a product blue without consideration of many other factors. In design, colour is almost always in context and that context makes all the difference in the world.
More interesting though is recent research I have read which proposes a reason why there is individual variation in colour preference. According to this idea, we like those colours that remind us of things that we like (we like blue skies and green grass). It could explain dark yellows and oranges are particularly unpopular; these colours are normally associated with some rather unsavoury things (dark orange is the colour of poo and dark yellow the colour of vomit). Further, if people have a strong affiliation with an idea/concept that is strongly associated with a colour, then they may have some preference bias towards that colour. It makes me think – I am a hug fan of Manchester United and red is my favourite colour; but do I like red because I like Manchester United or do I like Manchester United because I like red? I am too old to remember which came first.