Color

After 15 weeks of color. I'm official sick of it. This class was good and I learned a fair amount but I'm also really excited to be done. We learned color interactions and aspects of color, and it was good. It was good, but I'm glad it's done.

Selective Color

Through out our days we encounter numerous uses of selective color some being highly effective and others not. The use of selective color is highly evident in package design and advertising. This is smart because it grabs your attention and draws the viewer in, if it is not done correctly though, it could be passed by without even the thought of as second glance.

This image correctly uses the process of selective color. The red flower shape in the lower left hand corner draws your eyes into the piece and the almost completely blank canvas only accentuates the color red.

Another good example is the ipod ad. The green attracts your attention and draws you in. The white of the ipod and headphones lead the viewers eyes across the page, original ipods were also originally white, so these ads sold the product at the same time.

It is hard to find bad use of selective color, but it is out there, just keep looking.

Color Blind?

When you look at this circle what number do you see? If you don't see a 6 then you are color blind. People with color blindness generally have trouble seeing reds, greens, blues, or a mixture of the of the three. Most commonly is seeing red and green as the same color. 1 in 12 men and 1 in 20 women are born with color blindness, most often caused by genetics and usually present at birth.

Color blindness is caused by mutations of the X chromosome, leading males to be more likely to receive it, they only have one X chromosome and women have 2. There are many forms of color blindness, including some that are temporary (caused by migraines) and also having color blindness only in part of ones view.

Before doing any research I had no idea how many people were actually effected by color blindness and it leads to an interesting part about art. Graphic Designers, while color plays a large part of what they do, they cant solely rely on it. If you are trying to reach as broad an audience as possible you need to be conscious of of the colors you are using. You cant make a point by just having contrasting color, because it may not reach as broad of an audience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness
http://www.colormatters.com/v_colorblind.html

Spring Is In The Air

In a week it will officially be spring. With spring comes a re-birthing of sorts. Associated with this re-birthing is a bright array of colors. Pinks, purples, and yellows all vibrant and surrounding us on a daily basis. Whether natural or artificial these colors will be surrounding us for the next several weeks.
Now closely associated to Easter, the pastoral colors are ones associated with happiness. From painting eggs to freshly blooming flowers and everything in between, these pastels are important to our moods. After long winters and cold days, humans need something to lift there spirits, and what better way than color association. These pastels are invigorating and refreshing, going hand in hand with the sense of re-birth that occurs every March.
Peoples wardrobes change. A lot of winter clothes are boring and bulky, out of necessity. Spring clothes are colorful and sometimes barely there. For many people these colors are more than simply a color palette, they are a light at the end of a cold tunnel. Growing up we've always seen these pastoral colors associated with warmth and the beauty just before hot summers. Every year they reemerge to give us hope of the coming warmth and seemingly better days.

Color (again!)

The color yellow is splendid. Its vibrant and invigorating. Noticable and bright. It is everywhere in our lives and constantly seen. The oldest known usage of the color yellow is in the poem Beowulf. Its compliment is purple. Several animals have the color yellow in their names. It is used as many terms, including yellow journalism and racial slurs.

I enjoy the color yellow greatly. My bike is yellow. I have many sweatshirts and other articles of clothing that are yellow. Its a happy color that makes me smile when i see it. Bananas are delicious, they are yellow as well. A study done by the University of Chicago stated that yellow is the easiest color seen from a distance, thus leading to the paitning of taxis, a tradition to this day. School buses are also yellow, so they can be seen, occuring in less accidents keepng are kids safe. In sports a yellow flag or card is given in the event of a penalty.

Coldplay sung about the color yellow in a song. the leader of bike races wears a yellow jersey, a tradition started by the Tour de France. Pencils are traditionally yellow. The planet Saturn has a yelow color to it. Stop ligths have yellow as a warning of a red light. In some aspects of our lives, yellow is a good happy color and in other parts of our lives it is a warning. The color yellow is fantastic.

the relevance of color

I am a Photo major, so while most peoples lives revolve around color and there affect on different attributes, a lot of my time is spent studying a lack of color. My days revolve around find a perfect black and a perfect white and every shade of perfect gray in between, and I'm sure some people would ask why? While virbrant colors and shades might get a graphgic design major excited, to me, they are just cumbersome and wasteful. Why use all those unnnecessary colors when you can express such deeper emotion without ever having to use more than 2 colors.

And this leads me to the point of, what affect does color really have in our lives? If a graphic designer had to work solely in black and white he may be confused and stumble for direction not knowing where to go or how to express his message clearly, menawhile someone like Ansel Adams may have done the same if presented with the oppourtunity of color photography. These greatly varying impacts on both lines of work are what keeps the arts so interesting.

Black and white photography has this vintage feel to, that keep a lot of photographers sticking with it. The tones and varying levels evoke emotion and display great depth, while color photographs can accomplish this too, black and white has been doing it for so long, that many ask why stray? Meanwhile graphic designers flourish in the area of an abundance of color because it makes their jobs easier. When a client says I really want this fact to be stated, all the designer has to do is put it in a bright or contrasting color, something that wouldn't be as easy in black and white.

The usefullness of color differs greatly based on your profession and the aruguemnt for and against it will be argued til the end of time.

ketchup

How much of our lives is completely connected to color? How many objects that we see on a daily basis do we just assume are always going to be a certain color? This question was answered for us, sometime in 2000, with the introduction of green ketchup. While to most people over the age of the eight, this seems like a ridiculous idea, it may have been one of the best marketing ideas of the past decade.

"Today's kids are exposed to lots of vibrant colors and animation, and they expect these same experiences at the dinner table," said Gene Grabowski, spokesperson for the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

With kids being the number one consumers of ketchup, why not market it toward them? Once news of the new ketchup color spread, Heinz got requests for pre release samples, from families, schools, and churches.

To many, ketchup is red, it always has been and we thought it always would be. But it was brilliant to introduce a new color to things. What Heinz thought they would sell in a year they ended up shipping out in the first ninety days. To kids, it doesnt matter if it's green, red, or purple; it still tasted like ketchup and on top of it all its fun. so while many thought green ketchup may be a bad idea, at first it was one of the greatest marketing ideas of all time.
While I couldn't find why or for what reasons, I did find that Heinz discontinued the production of colored ketchups in January of 2006. Maybe ketchup is supposed to be red after all.
"It's Easy Being Green" http://pittsburgh.about.com/library/weekly/aa101700a.htm 13 February, 2008