Organized by color

The organization of objects in our environment, both our physical as well as our digital environment, is a large part of visual communication. When you are trying to design the character and mood of a space, each object with in the space whether revealed or concealed  plays a role in the visual landscape.    It seems like a simple idea. But what needs does organization have to fulfill? Ease of use, storage and visual aesthetics come quickly to mind. Sometimes all of these goals can be served by the same type of organization, but not always. Take a closet or a materials library for example:

Via Lou, Boos, and Shoes

The accessibility of the materials, storage, as well as the composition are well served by this organization of light to dark, warm to cool colors within the storage zone.

Via Apartment Therapy

You'd never lose a heel again with this bright arrangement by specific hue working around the color wheel.

But what about book libraries? Can books, objects we commonly think of in alphabetical terms, also be approached like the yarn or shoes?

Via Colossal

Via Web Urbanist

This is beautiful visually,  but are books by color practical without subject or author to go by? That all depends on the reader. To be more precise these systems, alphabetical vs chromatographic, are visual narratives (which you can read more about here). We get to use them to tell a story about our spaces. So we manipulate color not just by painting a wall or buying a certain dress but also with organization. How do you organize you books and shoes and yarn? Maybe this secret life of books video will get you thinking!

- Emily Eifler, Writer, Colour Studio

- Jill Pilaroscia, Principal, Colour Studio

Blue pill or Red pill

From vitamins to prescriptions most people take some kind of pill every day, but have you ever stopped to think about what color those pills are? Could the color of the pill dial up its effectiveness?  A study from India says color can amplify both the positive and negative placebo effects of medications.

"You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." -Morpheus (image, link)

"According to recent research the color, shape, taste and even name of a tablet or pill can have an effect on how patients feel about their medication. Choose an appropriate combination and the placebo effect gives the pill a boost, improves outcomes and might even reduce side effects. Now, researchers at the University of Bombay, New Mumbai, India, have surveyed users of over-the-counter (OTC) medication to find out just how much the color of a tablet influences patient choice." link

Swallowing a bitter pill? Maybe its just the color (link)

"Writing in the International Journal of Biotechnology, R.K. Srivastava and colleagues report that red and pink tablets are preferred over other colors... Strangely, they found that 14 percent of people think of pink tablets as tasting sweeter than red tablets whereas a yellow tablet is perceived as salty irrespective of its actual ingredients. White or blue tablets were judged to taste bitter by 11 percent of the participants  and 10 percent  said orange-colored tablets were sour. (link).  The over all conclusion of the study is in favor of the red pill but the details are a bit more complicated than that: "Twice as many middle-aged people preferred red tablets as younger adults and more women chose red tablets as were chosen by men."

So the red pill is best? But wait it depends on what the medication is for. Sleeping pills have been shown to be more effective if they are blue. A blue sleeping pill could have the opposite effect if you live in a region which culturally associates blue with a high energy activity, like soccer. Italian men for example, who root for a national team decked out in azure blue are immune to blue placebo effects.

So should we design medications to be gender specific? What about age, culture and geographic region specific? And if red and pink reign in the world of medication which reds and pinks would you prefer to take twice a day?  If you had to submit to blue, would this color seduce you?

- Emily Eifler, Writer, Colour Studio
- Jill Pilaroscia, Principal, Colour Studio

The power of Rainbow

When musing about the power of color we often think of the emotional effect color has on its viewers. But what about a different kind of power, take powerful companies for example.  How do the biggest, most powerful, and well known companies approach color? We were surprised to find that our list of the top three: Google, Apple and Microsoft; all have used a similar color scheme for their brands.

We know Apple has switched to the more subdued slate grey but the rainbow apple along with the other logos make a striking set. The rainbow has even been adopted by the LGBT community for its symbol of unity in diversity. So if the powerful and re-empowered alike are using the rainbow as identity; what is the power of rainbow?

SF Weekly

Wikipedia points us to a history of rainbow symbology "The use of rainbow flags as a sign of diversity, inclusiveness, hope and yearning has a long history." It has been employed historically by very diverse groups including Incans, Jews, Buddists, Italians and others.

A few weeks ago we posted about color beliefs by culture and found that the color meanings most agreed upon cross culturally were those closely associated with natural phenomenon. Rainbows fit in that category. These bright swathes of color born from the elements of water and air are seen all over the world. They have throughout history been imbued with glory and significance. Our pre-scientific explanations of rainbows ranged from the paths of gods to a wound in the sky healed by a goddess.

So while we now longer believe rainbows are the gods mark on Earth they still hold some of that old power, a different kind of power. We are still awed by rainbows, even if they are just in logos instead of the sky.

Do you need a rainbow in your life? If there are none outside here is the next best thing:

 For more see: Miri695, Jaqian, Rwangsa and Moyan_Brenn on Flickr

- Emily Eifler, Writer, Colour Studio
- Jill Pilaroscia, Principal, Colour Studio

The materials of color

Paint is not the only source of color at our disposal. What about paint chips!

Cozy little cave did a stair way spruce with a little paint chip wallpaper.  Notice the yellow and white painted stripes on the ceiling leading to the magical stair.

Ish and Chi made a striking color wall composition.

Design Verb has a tutorial for how to make business card holders out of chips.

Scott Prendergast used 500 chips from Home Depot for his color fade wall.

- Emily Eifler, Associate Designer, Colour Studio
- Jill Pilaroscia, Principal, Colour Studio

Color culture

Starting a New Year on our Gregorian Calendar brings up reminders of the other new year celebrations around the world. Chinese New Year later in January, Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) in early fall, or the Islamic New Year which moves around the calendar every year. It got us here at Colour Studio thinking about the color of all those different celebrations. What significance is hidden behind the chosen colors, and how do they differ from ours here at home?

We found this beautiful iris of information from David McCandleness over at Information is Beautiful and AlwaysWithHonor.com. They whipped it up back in April of 09. You can see their sources here.

InformationisBeautiful.net

The first thing to pop out upon reading is the closer the concepts are to natural phenomenon the more consistent the color associations are across cultures. We pretty much agree about the color of heat (41) and cold (10), and why not, fire and ice come from nature conveniently color coded. Evil (24), with its associations with the fear and danger of night, is just plain black; while passion (62) and eroticism (22) share the spectrum with red hot heat. Growth (37) is left pure green and squarely in the domain of plants; earthy (20) is brown, and even illness's (44) yellow elicits jaundice skin.

Two examples of color consistency with out direct natural equivalent are jealousy (49), which is all green, and truce (79), which is all white. These represent powerful cultural memes which have likely spread from one culture to the next replacing previous color symbology or maybe just filling in gaps.

As we get in to the more intangible concepts the color cultures diverge. Death (16), for example, is represented mainly as black or white, similar in their lack of hue if opposite in brightness and saturation.  Or take anger (1), which trends toward red but also includes black, perhaps a mix of heat and evil. No one can agree on intelligence (46), love (53), or wisdom (84).

But what would you pick if we were starting our color symbology from scratch? Here are a few of our favorites.

- Emily Eifler, Associate Designer, Colour Studio

- Jill Pilaroscia, Principal, Colour Studio

Clash your colors this Christmas!

Apartment Therapy

Since we will be off for the next two weeks we thought we should leave you with our perspective on color ideas for Christmas. Hey, everyone else is writing about it and we wanted to get in on the fun too. We here at Colour Studio, being highly cross disciplinary and studious about our color choices, will of course be recommending that you stick with red and green schemes this year. Elegance and complimentary color science above all. It's all very serious around here. Just kidding. While we are all for elegance, it can get a bit staid. Why not stray from the usual and expand your palette this year? 

Re-Nest

Now we are sure that most of you have boxes of family ornaments stashed away safely in the basement or garage. Those little treasures are wonderful and bring back cherished memories every year. But maybe with those traditions throw in a color twist. Try painting some new bulbs in bright eye catching colors or head down to the dollar store and grab a box of recyclable plastic bulbs, throw in some glitter, and get your chromatic confidence going! These bright  Christmas trees from Apartment Therapy have such energy! 

Apartment Therapy

Apartment Therapy

Apartment Therapy

Apartment Therapy

If you need more inspiration try heading over to Apartment Therapy and Re-Nest. We love them! Their sites are full of great colors. There are lots of options for some DIY color splashes: DIY Decorations from Re-nest or contemporary colored ornaments from Indie Pretty Projects.

- Emily Eifler, Associate Designer, Colour Studio

Ode to the Crayon

Inspired by our Project Manager Naomi and her "Color Outside the Lines" notebook we thought we could regress a bit this week and take a little trip down color memory lane. Many of us had our first introduction to color with crayons. 

We all loved to draw as kids, with a lack of talent but lots of enthusiasm. Crayons were one of the first introductions to pure color for many people. Before we had Photoshop to deliver almost any color with the click of the mouse, those little wax treasures brought the blue of the sky or the green of an tree down to kid size, literally made color tangible, usable and understandable. They even had that distinct caryon-y smell, ah the sense memories. 

So this week we are looking at coloring and crayons with grown up eyes. But we weren't the only ones to mature over the years, crayons have grown up too.

In 2010 Diem Chau, of The Pleasure of Tiny Things blog, was commissioned to carve 66 of these beautiful crayon soccer players for Nike in honor of the World Cup. They were put in eleven special VIP boxes designed by Wieden and Kennedy. 

Sculptor Peter Goldlust has also been taking a new look at the crayon with these beautifully carved geometric crayon pieces.  

Artist Christian Faur uses thousands of crayons to create an "pixalized" images, one point of color at a time. This work brings the crayon to digital image manipulation transition that comes with age in to sharp relief. 

But what rediscovery of crayons would be complete without a look at our long lost favorite colors of childhood. And what do you know, the folks over at wikipedia were helpful enough to provide hex numbers for all the Crayola crayons of our youth. Their list is wonderful, we never realized how many specialty crayons were out there. Along with the standard colors we can also choose from the silver swirls, gem tones, pearl brights, or metallic FX collections. Adult eyes also reveal details children rarely notice. For example one color name carries with it the history of racism and political correctness in America; "Chestnut" was originally called "Indian Red" until 1999. 

So now that we have scoured though all those crayon colors we threw together a few palettes. If you need a bit of whimsy and wax smell for your next project consider some crayon inspiration. There are some great projects out there if you need help getting started recycled crayons, window decorations, or wreathes and frames.

- Emily Eifler, Associate Designer, Colour Studio