interesting page about colour design with some nice visual examples.
Category Archives: culture
feeling blue?
In the 1800s a family in eastern Kentucky started producing children who were blue. In was apparently the result of a recessive gene and in-family breeding. The family lived an isolated life and there was little opportunity to mix with others. Medically, the condition is called methaemoglobinaemia – the ability to carry oxygen in the blood is reduced resulting in it being a darker colour. As eastern Kentucky became more populated there were fewer children born with the condition though the gene still exists today. See here for more details and the original story.
This is not perhaps the only case of blue people. The picts in Scotland were known as blue people. They fought naked with their bodies painted with woad – a blue colorant. And there is also the Ainu, people indigenous to Japan whose skin was often described as blue. Some people believe there was an ancient human race – the blue moovians – who lived about 60,000 years ago. But I think this might be new-age clap-trap.
Of course, talking of blue people we should mention Avatar. This is a movie that has a lot of hype and I had no interest in seeing it. I didn’t see it for a while but then I thought I should see what it was like. Generally, I thought it was great even if the militaristic movements at the end were a bit over the top. Some people have argued that the movie is racist – that blue is the new black. Apparently, all the humans in the movie are played by white actors and all the blue Na’vi by non-whites; and the blue Na’vi have been said to represent the native Americans in their use of bows and arrows. Worth reading.
The Incredible Grey Hulk
When I was young I used to read Marvel comics. My favourites were Spiderman and The Fantastic Four but I also liked the Hulk and Thor. When I was about 10 (in about 1972) I even had this idea of designing a wrist band that could shoot out web like spiderman. What I needed was a substance that would flow (as a liquid) when it was shot out but then quickly solidified to create the web. I noticed that polystyrene turned liquid under heat and I started to build a prototype. Sadly it never worked. But I often wonder if this incident sparked my interest in chemistry, an interest that led me to study Colour Chemistry at Leeds University in 1983 and finally to my lifelong passion for colour.
I just came across a story that the Hulk was not green in the original comic strip versions. He was grey!! Apparently, in The Hulk’s debut (May 1962, a few days after I was born) Lee chose grey for the Hulk because he wanted a colour that did not suggest any particular ethnic group. The chap in charge of the colour, Stan Goldberg, however, had problems with the grey; colour management was not what it is now and this resulted in several different shades of grey, and even green, in the first issue! Given the colour problems, Lee chose to change the skin colour to green. What a shocker! Next, I’ll probably find out that Spiderman was not real!!
taxi colours
In 2009 I blogged about a big row in Derby (UK) about yellow taxis. Most taxis in UK cities are black (in most other cities they are yellow). In 2009 Derby decided that their official taxis should be yellow.However, they didn’t specify exactly which yellow and they ended up in a bit of a mess with a taxi driver that they said had used the wrong shade of yellow. Good business for lawyers!
Then in 2011 I blogged about a major row in Durham (UK) where, again, there was a similarly heated row about the local council wanting to adopt white taxis in the city. It seems to be a topic that people get quite emotive about. So I wonder if there will be similar argument in Kolkata (West Bengal) where the government wants to change the taxi colours from yellow to blue and white. See here for the story.
I guess I sound like a bit of a sad geek, writing about taxi colours. Have I nothing better to do on a Sunday morning? The answer is obvious no. 🙂
But if you have read this far you might be interested in Beijing (China). Beijing is not known for its good taxis. But about 6 years ago the authority of Beijing city unified the colours to make them easier to recognise. The body of taxi is fixed to be 3-stripes-2-colors. The middle stripe is a golden yellow color while the rest of the body in another color which are commonly blue, green or red. When I was last in Beijing someone told me that the colours had special meanings but I am not sure it is true. I am going to consult my colour guru who works at Tsinghua University in Beijing and will add a comment later.
oldest work of art ever
I previously wrote about the finding of the oldest cave painting in the UK which was a 14,000-year old painting found in a cave in South Wales. You can read about that post here. Of course, the oldest cave paintings in the world are perhaps 30,000 years old; probably the Chauvet caves in France. Today, however, I read of a new finding: these are six paintings of seals that have been found in caves on the coast of Spain, about 35 miles east of Malaga, and thought to be about 42,000 years old.
The article claims that these paintings of seals are the oldest known works of art in the world. But are they? In 2000 the BBC reported that archaeologists in Zambia uncovered evidence that early humans used paint for aesthetic purposes far earlier than previously thought. The team found pigments and paint grinding equipment believed to be between 350,000 and 400,000 years old. The oldest pigments previously found were 120,000 years old.
PhD blogs
I just noticed that quite a few of my PhD students have blogs so I thought I would give them a mention.
Jason Kao is studying for a PhD in the generation of 3D movies – particularly interested in the effect of hue and saturation contrasts on the strength of the 3D percept (as in, red objects tend to appear forward whereas blue objects recede). You can read his blog here.
Jade Smith is undertaking a PhD to look at how we can understand more about how consumers use clothes in order to better design clothes that will be used longer. As you may know, our current consumption of textiles in the world is not sustainable even from the persepctive of the demands made of water during their manufacture and processing. You can read her blog here.
Maryam Da is undertaking a PhD in colour semiotics. Specifically, she is running a massive on-line global colour survey to determine the meanings that people attribute to different colours. She is also using a clever methoodology whereby each person does just a little bit of the experiment – in fact, we ask each person about just one colour. So there is not excuse not to help out. Please have a go at the survey – it takes less than a minute. You can read her blog here.
Koreans hate pink!
About six months ago I posted about popular car colours in Canada. Silver and grey were the most popular colours according to sales data with black not far behind. I think it would be a rather similar story in the UK. Certainly silvery grey has become very popular over the last 10 years or so. My own car is black. My last car was grey. White is not popular here – I heard that car salesman refer to the colour of second-hand white cars as “three-week white” because it takes three weeks longer to sell them than cars in other colours. Though I think the last few years has seen a slight increase in the popularity of white cars in the UK.
Anyway, according to The Color Association of the United States nine out of ten cars sold in South Korea are white, silver (grey) or black – a higher proportion for these three colours than in any other country. Apparently, white cars have the highest resale value; white is associated with families and therefore white cars are thought to have been owned by responsible family types like me and therefore will have been well maintained. (My car is definitely not well maintained.)
It’s very unusual to see a pink car in Korea – only a rebellious type would have such a car! The Wall Street Journal are currently reporting a story about such a non-conformant and feature on a Mr Park who bought a white sports car and had it painted pink. Whereas in France, the Citreon DS3 has just been launched with a fuchsia pink roof. There still remains a cultural difference where social pressure in the east urges people to fit in whereas in the west it is more about “look at me”. A japanese person once told me there is a proverb about the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
Personally, I would love a pink car, though certainly not a Citreon. This story also reminds me that a web-based study suggests that the most frequently mis-spelled colour word in the English language is fuchsia – or is it fuschia?
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.
14,000-year old cave painting found in South Wales
The earliest example of a cave painting in the UK has been found in South Wales. The faint scratchings of a speared reindeer are believed to have been carved by a hunter-gatherer in the Ice Age more than 14,000 years ago.
For further details see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-14272126.
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?
