Salon.com > Jude Stewart

The color clash solution

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

We all know this particular game of Printing Telephone: DeepPockets Company calls you up with a juicy assignment to redesign a beloved brand’s packages, printed collateral, signage -- the works. You labor (wo)manfully into the wee hours, turn around a brilliant concept, secure the client’s approval and then ship your designs into production. You’re printing in various locations globally, using multiple processes to churn out a bewildering variety of pieces.

Your team schools and schools the onsite printing manager at each location as to exactly how to color-match everything. Cut to the disastrous final reel: your woefully color-mismatched packages, brochures and all the rest, grouped like a guilty Exhibit A on a conference table, an angry client team arrayed all around it. How can you ever, ever relive such a scene?

Your Pinterest cheat sheet

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Social media watchers are ablaze lately with the news: Pinterest appears to be THE next hot tool. While Slate’s Farhad Manjoo gave a not-meant-for-me review of the tool (his article title, “Cupcakes, Boots and Shirtless Jake Gyllenhaal,” says it all), Pinterest’s numbers are indeed exploding. The site hit 10 million monthly unique visitors faster than any site ever, and it’s responsible for more referral traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. Clearly those are stats worth paying attention to.

But who should be using Pinterest, and for what exactly? More crucially, how can Pinterest feed the ever-ravenous maw of color and design fandom, whether you lead an entourage for your own work or dig the design work of others? Your primer has arrived ...

The next generation of color geniuses

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to an ongoing, freewheeling conversation on color with Thomas Bosket and Langdon Graves, who both teach color theory at Parsons the New School for Design. (Read part 1 to catch up.)

Do you have any knockout students in your color theory classes right now?

Thomas Bosket: I haven't taught color this past year, so here are some students from previous years: one work by Liz Marshall exhibited the Bezold effect and the economic use of color. [Ed note: the Bezold effect is an optical illusion in which two colors, juxtaposed in small doses, distort the impression of each color’s shade, just by proximity to another hue.] The other, by Stephanie Luk, offers a redesign of Parsons' very narrow hallways.

Can you teach color sense?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Can you teach an instinct for color? Some colorists think not; those who say you can compare the process to something slyer, a delicate sussing-out of an affinity we all draw upon daily. I spoke to Thomas Bosket, coordinator of graphic design and general studios and assistant professor, and Langdon Graves, both instructors in color theory at Parsons, the New School for Design, to get answers (and more tantalizing questions). The resulting outpouring of ideas, opinion and inspiration can’t be contained in a single post -- look for Part 2 of this conversation soon.

From Parsons’ Color and Culture student blog

Can you own a color?

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Color fans can now channel their fascination into a worthy cause: OwnaColour.com, sponsored by Glidden Paint, is auctioning off shades of the digital rainbow for charity. For a $2 donation to UNICEF (or more if you wish), you can select and name your very own shade. OwnaColour also provides real-time infographics tracking favorite shades by gender, country and so forth. (Thanks to James Hirschfeld for clueing me in.)

I love the idea -- cut to me, bee-lining it to buy the world’s most eccentric shade -- but it also got me thinking: Can you actually buy colors? Not too long ago I blogged here about International Klein Blue, a patented shade by artist and agent provocateur Yves Klein. Today’s post explores other real-world examples of companies and people trying to do just that.

The color stories you missed

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Now that 2011 is over, here’s a speedy roundup of the 11 best color stories of the year you may’ve missed.

2011 by zigazou76 on Flickr

We’ll start the list on a future-leaning note: awesome calendars. Color-fans should rush to supply themselves with On This Day calendars. Reusable for every year, this handy wall calendar consists of heat-sensitive cubes, each marking a noteworthy event from that day in history. Scribble your own notes for the year on the cube’s side, then wash-and-reuse next year - or frame and mount a year in your exceedingly colorful life.

The orange that will rule 2012

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:00:00 +0000

Pantone’s color of the year for 2012 is… my favorite juicy, delectable orange, a shade they call Tangerine Tango (or Pantone 17-1463, to be precise). Get the full scoop, including PMS number-matches across Pantone’s various systems, here.

I asked Pantone’s color guru Leatrice Eiseman for some inside dope on how she and the Pantone came to choose this smashing color. (You may recall Lee from her latest book, "Pantone: The 20th Century in Color" or her appearance at Print’s first Color Conference last fall.)

Books every designer should own

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:00:00 +0000

Color fans: I’m motoring for the next few weeks in the final push to write my book about color. So naturally I can’t move an inch without my laptop and a burstingly full backpack of reference books ... which got me thinking: How full are your bookshelves with THE best color reads? Here’s your hit list of seven faves:

Let’s start with the brand-new: "PANTONE: The 20th Century in Color." Leatrice Eiseman, Pantone’s chief color guru, has just published a gorgeous compendium of color trends spanning the 20th century (with naturally some sly winks into our own 21st century). It’s marvelous to leaf through or read in greater depth -- a fantastic reference for any designer tasked with a retro-look project or simply eager to plumb the trends of colors past, since they so often shade into color trends future.

The brilliant colors of August

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 00:20:00 +0000

"Disco Mecanique" (2008) by David Batchelor, via Iheartmyart

"To attend to color, then, is, in part, to attend to the limits of language, what a world without language might be like." -- David Batchelor

Batchelor is that exceedingly rare bird: an artist facile at both art-making and writing. I've been a hearty Batchelor fan for years now for his thoughtful writing on color and his many and varied artworks. Jump into the wordlessness of color with me -- shall we?

Colors for the 21st century

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:30:00 +0000

Color-fans: Today we try something new. Eager to invite folks into the color conversation, I asked Tom Biederbeck, editor of the excellent blog on print design Felt and Wire, to share some views.

Tom suggested we put the question to past master of the gloriously colorful: Sean Adams of AdamsMorioka. Sean and I both wrote columns for Tom when he was editor-in-chief of STEP Inside Design, and I've always wanted to meet Sean in person. (Sean, when we get that chance: The first beer's on me.)

Sean and Tom now spar in friendly Spy vs. Spy style in an occasional series for Felt and Wire called 3Q's. Below, Tom's and Sean's collectively smart take on color, inspiration, and what irresistibly draws the eye.

Does a brain quirk foster creativity?

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 01:01:00 +0000

Welcome back to Part 3 of my series on synesthesia, a harmless quirk in some brains -- mine included -- where one "sees" colors associated with letters, numbers, tastes, or sounds.

We've already explained what synesthesia is and what science can tell us about synesthesia's usefulness. Today we bite into the juicy part: synesthesia's role in creativity.

Lepidopterists Were Here by Orin Zebest on Flickr

Last time we ended with a knockout quote from the king of same, novelist (and avid lepidopterist) Vladimir Nabokov. Describing his own synesthesia for letters and numbers in his memoir "Speak, Memory," Nabokov continues:

Why is the letter “V” violet?

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 01:01:00 +0000

Welcome to part 2 of my series on synesthesia, a harmless quirk in some brains -- mine included -- where one "sees" colors associated with letters, numbers, tastes, or sounds. Post 1 introduced what synesthesia is. Today we dig into a hot-topic among scientists in recent years: is synesthesia useful to those who have it? What can studying it yield?

Before the meat-and-potatoes of science, I'll start you off with a gorgeous amuse-bouche. (Don't worry: the science part is more like wild steak tartare or Japanese uni than any humdrum fare.) I heartily enjoyed the Synesthesia video by Future Shorts (found via Motherboard and pictured above), but its goal isn't so much to depict real synesthesia as to riff creatively on the idea.

What color is the letter “E”?

Tue, 24 May 2011 01:01:00 +0000

It's prime time to discuss an old favorite of mine (and of many color fans): synesthesia, that curious trick of certain brains, mine included, that makes one "see" colors in letters and numbers in dry black-and-white, or see them in sounds, tastes or textures. Welcome to one of the more beautiful and strange wrinkles in the color-brain.

Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9... on Flickr. Logo by Chermayeff & Geismar.

"The number 1, for example, is a brilliant and bright white, like someone shining a flashlight into my eyes. Five is a clap of thunder or the sound of waves crashing against rocks. Thirty-seven is lumpy like porridge, while 89 reminds me of falling snow ... In an interview with talk show host David Letterman in New York, I told David he looked like the number 117 -- tall and lanky. Later outside, in ... Times Square, I gazed up at the towering skyscrapers and felt surrounded by 9s -- the number I most associate with feelings of immensity."

What explains the color of money?

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:45:00 +0000

Greetings, taxpayers! Here's a fine excuse to look up from your pained calculator-stabbing and blood-smeared Form 1040s and horse around a little. After all, you have until today to file with the IRS, so why not join us for a whirlwind tour of the various colors of money?

U.S. $5 Demand Note from Wikipedia