Tag Archives: design

jaws

design, nature, news, , , , , , ,


“Wearing a light blue wetsuit that matches the colour of the sea will make you less likely to become the victim of a shark attack, according to researchers.
Sharks are completely colour blind and only see things clearly if they are mostly light or dark, scientists have claimed.”according to the Daily Mail.

This does not make a lot of sense – if sharks are colour blind then it wouldn’t matter what colour you wear. But later in the article the point is put better by Professor Nathan Hart, from the University of Western Australia: ‘It’s the high contrast against the water rather than the colour itself which is probably attractive to sharks. So you should wear perhaps more muted colours or colours that match the background in the water better.’

Apparently sharks really are monochromats – so colour blind in the popular understanding of the word – and so it’s really a case of matching the yoru swim suit with the lightness or brightness of the surrounding water. Don’t wear a very bright or a very dark swim suit, in short. Maybe this can lead to better designed swimwear!

1950s graphics

culture, design, news, opinions/rants, , , , , , , , ,

When I was younger I was a big fan of Marvel comics. I loved The Fantastic Four and Spiderman in particular. I remember that US-based comics (Marvel and others) around the 1960s included the most outrageous adverts that offered fantastic products at very low prices. I always remember wanting some of the sea monkeys and also some of the x-rays specs. Though they were inexpensive, USA seemed a million miles away to me at the time and the notion of buying something from the USA and having it delivered to the UK seemed too fantastic. So I never placed an order. Probably a good thing – check out this interesting review of the 10 most outrageous comic-book advertisements. See also here for more about the monkeys!!

I was reminded of all of this when I came across an article today in the Daily Mail about the work of Peter Stults, an American artist who has taken modern movies and imagined how they would have been advertised in the 50s and 60s. Really interesting and evocative.


ps. If you like Marvel you may like to read what I found out about the colour of the Hulk.

women like pink

culture, design, , , , , , , , , ,

I don’t know if it is related to my recent post that people, especially females buy bright colours in times of austerity, but I just came across a report that claims that women like pink gadgets and laptops.

Dr Gloria Moss, Reader in Human Resources at Bucks New University said:

“There’s a very strong tendency for men to prefer hard, rectangular and dark shapes. While women showed a preference towards more curved, and pink design. I don’t think it’s anything for women to be afraid of that women like different colours, because the roots of the colour preference take womens’ responsibility beyond hearth and home. The differences have their origins in the different activities carried out by men and women over the ages.”

Moss used a range of website designs created by men and women to test her hypothesis amongst a sample group of students at Oxford. Men preferred linear, rectangular designs, while women preferred colourful designs with large images.

I’m a man but I also like pink. So clearly the above does not apply to all women and all men.

For balance see my post on pink stinks.

taxi colours

culture, design, news, , , , ,

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.

Design is everything and nothing

design, opinions/rants,

It’s possible to say that everything is designed. When we think of design we often think of fashion design or graphic design, or perhaps automtotive design or software design. But everything is designed. When we put a meal together, couldn’t you say we are designing? A chef is a food-designer!! When we are arrange our furniture, aren’t we engaging in interior design? Isn’t a chemist engaging in design at the moulecular level? Thinking like this leads to the idea that design is everything. However, if design is everything and everywhere then it is no thing and nowhere in particular. So if design is everything then it is also nothing. Discuss.

any colour as long as it is black

culture, design, fun, opinions/rants, , , ,

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?

favourite colour

design, opinions/rants, , , , , ,

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

culture, design, news, , , , ,

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!

chess app for iPhone

opinions/rants, , , , , ,

Though this is a blog about colour I can’t help but take this opportunity to announce that I recently had my first app for the iPhone accepted by Apple on the appstore – no mean feat I can assure you – and it is now available for download.

It’s a chess app called ChessTutor Lite. Most chess apps allow you to play the computer or even play your friends. Mine doesn’t allow either of those things. Booooooo! However, it does something equally exciting in my opinion – it allows you to step through a grandmaster game and predict the moves at each step. For each move you make you get a score (100% if you make the move made by the grandmaster – or as good as – right down to 0% if you make a game that results in a catastrophic defeat!!). You also get a natural language comment about why the move you made is good or bad. Huzzzzaahahah. So it allows you to assess how good your chess is and learn how to play better. It’s pretty unique I think. And it’s completely free.

Here’s a screen shot from the app so you can at least admire my use of complementary colour harmony in the design!!

You can find out further details about here – http://www.colourchat.co.uk/apps/chesstutor/ – or just put chesstutor into the search box an your iphone apps page.