Tag Archives: colour
define colour
The longer I teach colour the more frustrated I become about the lack of accurate and precise language to talk about colour. It creates so much confusion.
Take the opening few lines on wikipedia for the entry on Black –
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light. Although black is sometimes described as an “achromatic”, or hueless, color, in practice it can be considered a color, as in expressions like “black cat” or “black paint”.
Well, I have an issue with the first sentence because every object you have ever seen (even the black ones) reflects light at almost every wavelength in the visible spectrum. Black objects just don’t reflect very much light. The only thing I know that does not reflect any light is a black hole. And I have never seen one of those. But it is the second sentence that I think is interesting. It essentially says (paraphrasing) that although black is sometimes described as a colour it is a colour. This does not make sense. It should read – Black is described as a colour and is a colour. Why the “Although”? The answer to this is that colour is being used with two different meanings in the same sentence.
In the first part of the sentence colour is used to define the holistic sensation of colour (colours according to this definition have at least three attributes: such as lightness, chroma and hue). Hue is whether a colour is red, green, blue, yellow etc. Chroma is how the colour deviates from grey. Lightness is about how much light is generally reflected or emitted. In short. Colours that have no chroma are said to be achromatic (grey, black, white etc.). On the other hand, in the second part of the sentence colour is used to represent that component of colour that is hue. It is only by invoking these two separate definitions of colour (the holistic and the partial) that the sentence makes sense.
There may be more than these two definitions of colour. There is also the notion that colour is used to represent the physical and the perceptual that I have raised in an earlier post.
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?
Warwick prize for colour
A while ago I wrote about a novel whose main theme was colour. I thoroughly recommend it and if you have the means you should pick one up.
However, it is a shame that the novel was published a few years ago because this year the Warwick prize for writing 2011 is to be based on a special theme: colour!! The short list includes a piece about camouflage and mimicry in nature. There is a £50,000 prize for the winner which will be announced later this year.
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.
coloured keyboard
When I bought my first mac this year – A mac book pro – I was really pleased with the keyboard. The backlighting is a really cool effect and makes the keys really easy to see. However, I came across a whole new meaning of backlit keyboard today.
The new Luxeed U5 illuminated keyboard allows the user to select one 430 backlit colours for each of the keys. The intended use for this is for gamers who may want to use colour coding to make it easier to identify keys with certain tasks.
living pigments
Recent research from Prof Pettigrew – University of Queensland, Australia – has shown that one of the reasons that some cave paintings have apparently retained their colour for so long is that the original pigments in the paint have been replaced by living organisms that are themselves coloured. This makes dating cave paintings difficult and also makes it hard to know what the original paint colours were. The story is reported by the BBC – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12039203
colourful greeks
It’s often thought that black, white and grey are mature and sophisticated colours and that saturated reds and yellows are childish colours. Part of the reason for this is that the Romans and Greeks didn’t use colour. All those classic statues we see in museums are achromatic. However. this may be all based on a misunderstanding. At a CREATE conference in Italy last year I first came across the idea that the Romans and Greeks used colour quite extensively but that over the centuries the colour faded. Today I saw this story in the popular press.
An exhibition of work – Gods In Colour: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity – recoloured as it is believed to have originally been features more than 20 full-size colour reconstructions of Greek and Roman works. Currently on show at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany.
favourite colour
I was reading on a web page that white is the usual response if you ask people their favourite colour – http://www.pressdistribution.net/14735/apple-iphone-4-white-show-true-colour
I don’t think its true. Most studies show that people’s favourite colour is blue. I have never heard of a study that found white to be the favourite colour. The article was about the iPod though and we all know that the use of white was an inspired choice by Apple. The white earphone leads have become iconic and are part of the brand that consumers buy into by the millions. In fact, I think this is a very interesting phenomenon – there is a lot of research that shows that people prefer one colour to another. But what use is it? Over the last few years my research has focussed on the context of colour preference; that is, which colours would be most effective when used for a particular product (and by extension, for a particular market).
colour blind to traffic lights
Colour blindness afflicts about 1 in 12 men in the world. Women are far less affected because they have two X chromosomes. Men only have one X chromosome and therefore there is no backup if the gene for good colour vision is damaged or changed. Of course, colour blindness is a misnomer. Very few people indeed are really colour blind and the term colour defective is scientifically more correct. So-called colour blind people have trouble discriminating between colours that the rest of us see as different. Most commonly the difficult is in telling reds and greens apart which is where the term red-green colour blind derives from. Though people need to be able to pass colour-vision test before they can be employed in certain professions (such as being an aeroplane pilot) where colour decisions are critical, everyone is allowed to drive a car. Even though traffic lights are red and green!!
The argument for allowing colour blind people to drive has always been, I think, that drivers quickly learn the positions of lights. Red, is on top, amber in the middle and green on the bottom. However, is that red-amber-green order used everywhere in the world. It is used in the UK where I live. But elsewhere?
Whether to do with the order of the lights or not, several studies have shown that colour blindness is a risk factor in driving. Hence the development of the UniSignal (Universal Signal Light). Developed in South Korea the UniSignal uses different shapes for different colours so that drivers can recognise which light is on whatever the order in the particular city in which they find themselves.
Kandinsky would approve!