In 2009 I blogged about a row in Derby about the yellow colour of taxis. But times change. Things move on, Today I am reading about a problem in Durham – for those who don’t know, Durham is in the north-east of England – about white taxis!! Apparently, this week ten drivers stormed out of a meeting with councillors over a proposal to adopt a policy for all-white colour taxis in the county of Durham. The argument for white taxis is that it would make them stand out and ensure that customers knew which taxis were legitimate. Sounds pretty sensible to me. It would work because white is a very unpopular colour for cars in the UK. I have heard that second-hand car salesmen refer to white as six-week white because it takes 6 weeks longer to sell a white car than other coloured cars. Whereas in other parts of the world, I have noticed in my travels that white cars are quite popular. Perhaps there is a business opportunity here – to export the unpopular white cars to places where they may sell for a premium.
Category Archives: fun
colour choice
I met a chap from an Advertising Agency today and was surprised when he offered me his business card. He didn’t offer me a single card; he offered me a selection from a fan of cards of different colour.
I chose the purple one and was then surprised when my PhD student told me she has chosen the same colour. A clever experiment in colour preference perhaps? Next time we meet I’ll have to ask him for the data. I hope he is keeping a record of which colour cards are proving most popular.
If you are interested in this you may like to have a look at my colour preference poll. After you take part in the poll (takes only a few seconds) you can see the results of the study so far.
If you like this blog http://colourware.wordpress.com/ you can follow it on twitter – go to http://twitter.com/#!/stephenwestland
blue appetite suppressant
It is said that blue is an appetite suppressant and that red stimulates appetite. But is this really true? I would be interested if anyone knows of any studies into this.
I have also read that the reason that blue is an appetite suppressant is that blue food is very rare. I think blue food is less frequent than, say, green or red. But there is, of course, blueberries. And I just came across a type of mushroom that is naturally blue. It’s called Lactarius Indigo. I’ve also come across blue food more commonly in other places such as Japan.
favourite colour poll
any colour as long as it is black
Famously Henry Ford, speaking of the Model T car in 1909, said “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.”
Black is, I think, one of the most interesting colours. I recently came across a book – think it was called A History of Black – which was all about this one colour. In my 25 years working in colour perhaps the most frequent question I have ever been asked is “Is black a colour?”
One interesting aspect of black is that it is almost timeless in its ability to be fashionable. This is one reason why it is worn by lots of people who are particularly conscious of colour (because they work in fashion or interior design etc.). It seems strange at first that people who are most interested and aware of colour are more than likely to wear black. Black is a regular occurrence in the attire of my colleagues in the School of Design at the University of Leeds. Given that it’s timeless, it is also safe. There is no danger of being seen in the wrong colour.
I mainly wear brown. I wonder what that says about me?
colour branding survey
Please take a moment to take part in this colour branding survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HTJJ5L6
It will only take a few minutes. This is a survey conducted by one of my students in the School of Design (http://www.design.leeds.ac.uk/) at the University of Leeds.
When the survey is complete I will post a comment about the results here for those who are interested.
colour theory for eye makeup?
The impressionists understood about colour contrast. If you put a colour patch on a coloured background the colour of the patch will usually change (compared to if, for example, the patch was observed on a chromatically neutral background). The colour of the patch tends to move towards the complementary colour of the background. If the background is the complementary colour of the patch then the patch becomes particularly vivid.
In Van Gogh’s cafe and night cafe paintings you can see the juxtaposition of yellow and blue and red and green. Today I came across a more contemporary application of colour theory – eye make-up!
DoWop have produced something called EyeCatcher Shadows where the colour that is applied to the eyelid is the complementary colour of the iris. To see more visit – http://www.asos.com/Duwop/Duwop-Eyecatcher-Shadows/Prod/pgeproduct.aspx?iid=1047107
holiday in colour
A new website – www.explorra.com – allows you to pick a holiday based upon your colour preference.
I just put click on red (my favourite colour) and it suggested Spain, Africa, and Mauritania, none of which are places I have a burning desire to visit. Maybe it’s just me. Why don’t you try it!!
Shades of grey – novel
It was nice to stroll into Leeds today and see all the green grass after all this snow we have had. All I have seen for the last 3-4 weeks is white – or rather, shades of grey as the snow melted, refroze and melted etc. So speaking of shades of grey, I came across a novel today in Waterstones of that very name – Shades of grey by Jasper Fforde – published in Dec 09. This novel is a sci-fi vision of the future where democracy has been replaced by colourtocracy; a social hierarchy based on your colour vision. Sounds interesting but it could take me some weeks to read it so if anyone has read it please reply to this post with a brief review.
Notice how the cover has red, yellow and blue on it. A further indication that the notion of red, yellow and blue as the primary colours is well and truly embedded in the general consciousness of the population (whether it is true or not that these are the primaries!).
Out of interest, I also bought The rain before it falls by Jonathan Coe (I love everything by this author) and Gateway by Frederik Pohl. Not of colour interest … but could be good reads.