Tag Archives: education

MSc Colour

news, Uncategorized, ,

I am really excited to announce a new Masters programme at University of Leeds in the School of Design.

MSc Colour is a postgraduate qualification that is launching in 2024. There are two unique aspects to the programme.

Firstly, it is inherently multidisciplinary. Colour is a natural meta-discipline and to study well it is important to have an open mind and to be prepared to stretch yourself beyond your natural academic area. We will recruit students from all disciplines: art, design, chemistry, computing etc. In the first semester all students will have to undertake some colour design, some colour material science and some colour imaging technology. This multidisciplinary approach is to key to our thinking. However, in the second semester students will specialise in one of three areas:

  • Colour Design
  • Colour Materials
  • Colour Imaging

Secondly, our programme is aligned with the Colour Literacy Project. The CLP, supported by the AIC and the ISSC, is an educational initiative to strengthen the bridge between art and science in 21st century colour education, while addressing common misconceptions and misinformation about colour. The primary objective of the project is to develop a colour education website, within a STEAM framework, which provides foundational, state-of-the-art resources on the art, science and industry of colour for teachers at all education levels. We will be paying particular attention to the common misconceptions about colour which can be found in some educational material.

I will be the Programme Leader for this new programme. For the last few years I have been teaching colour as part of MA Design at Leeds but I am super excited about being involved in a programme where the focus is colour. We have a really talented team of academics with wide experience and can’t wait until next September.

For further information visit here.

2020 wasn’t all bad

news, , ,

2020 was a depressing year in many ways for obvious reasons. However, I was still really proud of the four PhD students who graduated with me during this year.

Keith Findlater graduated with a PhD in high-dynamic range imaging, Sarah Hasbullah graduated with a PhD in colour for colour in fashion and body image, Jing Lin graduated with a PhD in the effect of coloured light on alertness and Jie Yang graduated with a PhD in colour and landscape images. It’s always exciting to see where graduated students go next. I already know that Sarah and Jie have academic positions and Keith has got a great job in medical imaging in the NHS.

You can see find publications from these students and others at my personal page at http://stephenwestland.co.uk/

MRes Colour Communication

advanced stuff, design, knowledge, news, professional, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

colour communication

We’re starting a new programme at Leeds University next September. It’s MRes Colour Communication. This is a one-year Masters programme by research but with a twist. There is a taught component in the first semester to get everyone up to speed to make sure they understand the basics of colour communication. They then explore one aspect of this in their research project and submit a dissertation at the end of the year. Please contact me at my University email of s.westland@leeds.ac.uk for further information or visit http://www.design.leeds.ac.uk/pg/research-degrees/.

AIC2014

art, culture, design, knowledge, news, opinions/rants, professional, , , , , , , , , , ,

logobig-full
As some of you may know, I was General Chair of AIC2013 this year. We had a great time in Newcastle and spent a week with over 600 delegates talking about colour. But time moves on and we are approaching 2014. I would therefore like to draw your attention to the next AIC meeting which is in Mexico in October 2014. The theme is colour and culture and the venue – Oaxaca – is stunning. I hope to see you there.

For further details visit http://www.aic2014.org/index_en.html

Workshop in Wuhan

design, fun, knowledge, , , , , , , , , ,

Last week I went to Wuhan (China) where I was invited by the Department of Industrial Design at Huazhong University of Science and Technology to give a two-day workshop on colour and a lecture. In the workshop I asked the students to arrange a set of colour chips in a logical order. Here is the result.IMG_3666

IMG_3667

IMG_3668

Group 1
Group 1

Group 2
Group 2

Group 3
Group 3

Group 4
Group 4

The last four images show the final work by each of four groups. Group 3 were the best in my opinion. Of course, this task is difficult, if not impossible, in 2-d. Colour perception is at least 3-d and the dimensions are lightness, chroma and hue. The workshop task was designed to enable the groups to explore the ontology of colour perception. It was also good fun!!!

What colour is your pen?

culture, news, , , , , ,

Tonic-contour-frosted-colour-pen-FCCOFB

A new study by academics at the University of Colorado suggests that the colour ink you use when providing comments and feedback to students can alter their perception of criticism and place unnecessary blame on the teacher for bad marks or feedback. According to the researchers teachers should use a blue pen if they want their comments to be taken in a constructive manner. The full research paper is available online here.

new colour blogs

knowledge, news, professional, technology, , , , ,

Readers may be interested in a new colour-related blog by the SDC’s Chief Executive Graham Clayton. The SDC – the Society of Dyers and Colourists – is the world’s leading independent educational charity dedicated to advancing the science and technology of colour worldwide. It is a professional, chartered Society and becoming a member gives access to SDC’s professional coloration qualifications. I have been a member since about 1982 and I am a Chartered Colourist and a Fellow of the SDC.

I also recently came across another colour blog called chromatic notes. It’s not clear from the web site who runs this blog but there is a great deal of technical information there.

RYB primaries

knowledge, opinions/rants, , , , , , , , ,

There are two phrases I keep seeing written down all over the internet that cause my blood pressure to increase.

The first is that the colour primaries are red, yellow and blue (RYB). And the second is that the primaries are colours that cannot be made by mixing other colours. Neither of these statements are true, of course.

The first statement makes no distinction between additive colour mixing (of lights) and subtractive colour mixing (of paints and inks) but subtractive colour mixing is normally implied. However, RYB is a relatively poor choice for three colour primaries. The range of colours that can be produced is actually quite small. For most painters and artists it doesn’t matter because very few work in just three primaries – if they did so they would probably be frustrated by the small gamut of colours achievable. Many artists (painters) will use 10 or more basic colours to mix their palette. However, there is a group of people who care passionately about the gamut of colours that can be obtained by mixing three colour primaries – that is the people who work for companies such as HP and Canon. These companies make CMYK printers for the consumer market and their jobs depend upon consumers liking their printers. They understand that the largest gamut (in subtractive mixing) can be obtained if the primaries are cyan, magenta and yellow (CMY). The teaching of RYB as the (subtractive) primaries should be stopped. It’s already gone on for far too long.

One reason I don’t like the teaching of RYB as being the subtractive primaries, in addition to the fact that it is wrong, is that it confuses people who are trying to learn colour theory. This is because red, yellow and blue seem to be quite pure colours and this encourages people to hold the second belief I don’t like which is that the primaries are pure colours that cannot be mixed from other colours. If people understood that the primaries were CMY it would be less tempting to hold this belief about the purity of the primaries. Of course, if you make a palette of colours of three primaries then it is true that no mixture of two or more colours from that palette can match any of the primaries. However, there are other colours (that are outside the gamut of the primary system) that could be mixed together to match the primaries. This false notion of purity confuses the real issue – that is, that the subtractive primaries are cyan, magenta and yellow because the additive primaries are red, green and blue. Look at this picture below:

The additive primaries are red, green and blue and the secondaries are cyan, magenta and yellow. Correspondingly, the subtractive primaries are cyan, magenta and yellow and the subtractive secondaries are red, green and blue. Simple.

I wrote about this before so for a slightly different perspective see my earlier post.

Perhaps I am so agitated about it today because I am just watching England getting trounced by Ireland at rugby when the Grand Slam was so tantalisingly close. Or maybe I will feel just the same tomorrow.

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.

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.