Color
When the phenomena are endless
"There can be no description or theory of color per se," Irwin insists, "when the phenomena are endless." The notion that color can be reduced to a series of codes, to a grammar, or to a form of "mathematics," to use Wittegensetein's term, is, for Irwin, nonsense, since color is dependent on context and ground-up perceptual experience. Beginning with color codes or concepts was to reduce in advance an infinitely wide range of phenomena to a limited set of categories, editing out all specificity in favor of abstraction.
Irwin Fluorescents
In order: Kenny Price, Blue Lou, Legacy, Fourfold, Niagara.
Irwin has explained that he decided to use the fluorescent tubes in the "dumbest" way possible, but, as one critic cautioned, "dumb, it turns out, has a special meaning for him: It's a form so simple that you end up not paying attention to it as a form." Irwin's interest was, rather, in the range of light, color, reflection, and shadow interaction made possible by combining tubes with different hues and finishes by wrapping them with theatrical gels.
In the lee of the sills
The first thing you register here is the dramatic inconsistency in the coloration of the timber cladding the house in Haldenstein: the natural hues of the wood survive only in the lee of the sills, like re-growth along the parties of a head of dyed hair. But a second glance takes in the precision of the cuts made to accommodate the window and the fact that the pine is used in seamless lengths.
A universal correspondence
In 1923 Kandinsky proposed a universal correspondence between the three elementary shapes and the three primary colors: the dynamic triangle is inherently yellow, the static square is intrinsically red, and the serene circle is naturally blue.
The series ▲■● represents Kandinsky’s attempt to prove a universal correlation between color and geometry; it has become one of the most famous icons of the Bauhaus. Kandinsky conceived of these colors and shapes as a series of oppositions: yellow and blue represent the extremes of hot/cold, light/dark, and active/passive, while red is the intermediary between them. The triangle, square, and circle are graphic equivalents of the same polarities.
250. Warm Colors
Problem
The greens and grays of hospitals and office corridors are depressing and cold. Natural wood, sunlight, bright colors are warm. In some way, the warmth of the colors in a room makes a great deal of difference between comfort and discomfort.
Solution
Choose surface colors which, together with the color of the natural light, reflected light, and artificial lights, create a warm light in the rooms.
Hues subdued
Colors in nature are, in general, more subdued than what comes directly from the pencil or the tube of paint. Greens, especially, tend to be a lot browner than we expect.
The palette of nature
"What nature does with its colors is invariably—the palette of nature is twice as complicated, at least twice as sophisticated, as anything any artist can ever come up with. On a couple levels.
To start with, there are these amazing combinations of colors, filled with surprises and almost never wrong. I don't know how Nature ever conceived to put, say, those together. But, boy, are they right on the money!"
Colors in nature
Twice every summer we discussed whether colors in nature could clash.
Color codes
When not compelled to do otherwise, the Braun design team’s use of color in products was reduced to highly specific areas such as control switches. Restricting the use of color to small points on an otherwise neutral object concentrates its effect, which is shifted away from decoration and towards function, especially when each color is assigned a signal role such as green for ‘on / off' switches, red for ‘fm’ and yellow for ‘phono’ on hi-fis or yellow for the second hand on clocks and watches.
This color coding of operating details is a primary example of the self-explanatory nature of Braun products.
Sketches
Sketches and written notes.
The deception of color
In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize
that color deceives continually.What counts here – first and last – is not so-called knowledge
of so-called facts, but vision – seeing.Not the what but the how
Our concern is the interaction of color; that is, seeing
what happens between colors.We are able to hear a single tone.
But we almost never (that is, without special devices) see a single color
unconnected and unrelated to other colors.
Colors present themselves in continuous flux, constantly related to
changing neighbors and changing conditions.As a consequence, this proves for the reading of color
what Kandinsky often demanded for the reading of art:
what counts is not the what but the how.Disliked colors
We try to recognize our preferences and our aversions –
what colors dominate in our work; what colors, on the other hand,
are rejected, disliked, or of no appeal. Usually a special effort
in using disliked colors ends with our falling in love with them.A cook with taste
Observe the interior and exterior, the furniture and textile decoration
following such color schemes, as well as commercialized color “suggestions”
for innumerable do-it-yourselves.Our conclusion: we may forget for a while those rules of thumb
of complementaries, whether complete or “split”, and of triads and
tetrads as well.
They are worn out.Second, no mechanical color system is flexible enough
to precalculate the manifold changing factors, as named before,
in a single prescribed recipe.Good painting, good coloring, is comparable to good cooking.
Even a good cooking recipe demands tasting and repeated tasting
while it is being followed.
And the best tasting still depends on a cook with taste.Does it have color?
Whether something “has color” or not is as hard to define verbally as are
such questions as “what is music” or “what is musical."Chromatic mutiny
Nevertheless there were a number of colorful appliances produced by Braun, particularly from the late 1960s onwards, when plastics in bright primary colors became fashionable and available.
T3 domino lighter
KMM 2 coffee grinder
HLD 4 hairdryer
KF 145 coffee maker
HT 95 pop-up toasterWhen Rams’s team used color in such a way, it was uncompromising in its intensity: loud and demanding. The highly reduced forms of the products that it clothed, which had gently rounded edges, smooth opaque surfaces and discreet (usually black) detailing only served to increase this intensity.
"The intention was to create product alternatives for people who wished for strong color highlights in their living environments. This impulse came from marketing - not from design,” says Rams, dissociating himself from this approach. This was one instance where marketing got the upper hand in the decision-making process and the design team had to bow to contemporary fashion.
Indeed, there is a defiant aspect to these chromatic exceptions; they are not so much compromises as mutinous responses. Nevertheless, the resulting products are beautiful objects in their stand-alone way.
A strange calligraphy
Along the sand there will be frisky shadows, that will dance and fall away.
Or, if there is snow, the flames will write a strange calligraphy against the whiteness.Interaction of Color
A Book by Josef AlbersBetter colormaps?
An Article by Mark LibermanA modest sample of alternative ways of coloring the same type of 2-D density plots of rates of F0 change and amplitude change.
Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours
A Website by Nicholas RougeuxA recreation of the original 1821 color guidebook with new cross references, photographic examples, and posters designed by Nicholas Rougeux.
Color Controversy
A Website by Leo RobinovitchSo some friends and I were talking about colors one day and how we all see colors a bit differently and how that's neat.
But is there a color that is interpreted differently THE MOST? Is there a most controversial color? Well, (if I contrive an ongoing survey and collect data about it), the answer is yes, of course!
The Subtleties of Color
A Series by Robert SimmonThe use of color to display data is a solved problem, right? Just pick a palette from a drop-down menu (probably either a grayscale ramp or a rainbow), set start and end points, press “apply,” and you’re done. Although we all know it’s not that simple, that’s often how colors are chosen in the real world. As a result, many visualizations fail to represent the underlying data as well as they could.
Brilliant Hardware in the Valley of the Software Slump
It begins with craft
Something strange is happening in the world of software: It’s slowly getting worse. Not all software, but a lot of it. It’s becoming more sluggish, less responsive, and subtly less reliable than it was a few years ago.
In some ways this is hyperbole. Objectively, we’ve never been able to do so much, so easily with our smartphones and laptops and tablets. We’ve never pushed more data between more places more readily. But while the insidious “worseness” I mention falls only in part on the engineering side of things, it falls harder on the more subjective, craft side of things, making it all the more worrisome.
Why should we care about this? Because the majority of our waking hours take place within the confines of applications. A truth recently amplified by the covid pandemic.
And I believe software used by millions (if not billions) has a moral duty to elevate the emotional and intellectual qualities of its users. That elevation begins with craft.
Penn Station
In the same way that physical architecture can affect a mind, so too can software. Slower, less reliable software is like Penn Station: Sure, you can catch a transfer from one train to another but the dreary lowness of the place, the lack of sunlight or sensible wayfinding will make you feel like a rat, truculent and worthless, and worse: You’ll acclimate to that feeling and accept it as a norm.
Edges
Hardware has literal and metaphorical edges — it must be fully complete and largely bug free to ship. Software? It’s far more amorphous, like mist. Patches can be endlessly pushed. It never ends. Faulty hardware can destroy a company. Faulty software can be patched. The butterfly keyboard debacle may never be lived down. Even as I type on this improved Magic Keyboard, I can’t help but wonder: Did they really test this thing? I had three butterfly keyboards die on me, twice in the field. Not fun. Hardware failures live long in the mind.
The business case for craft
macOS software that adheres to craft — Things or Carbon Copy Cloner or BBEdit or Sublime Text (which, despite not being “native native” feels so solid and so responsive you’re willing to overlook its quirks) or Bear or Alfred or iA Writer or Keynote (arguably one of the best pieces of macOS software of all time) or anything by Panic, heck, even Terminal or Quicken (which, against all rational expectations is just a joy to use)5 — exists in troves, the existence of such proves to the Slacks or Twitters or Adobes of the world that it’s not impossible nor rare to produce craft-oriented software in service to user fluency, and still make a profit.
In fact, there’s a business case to be made for being craft- and fluency-focused. We’ve seen entire companies with business models that could be summarized as “Bloat-Free X” emerge in recent years. Affinity is bloat-free Adobe. Install Adobe Creative Cloud on your laptop and marvel at the no fewer than a dozen processes whirling around in the background for unknown purposes. It’s no surprise Affinity Photo and Publisher and Designer have taken off. Sketch’s main feature for many years was simply: Not Adobe.
And the web! When you care — when you really give a shit — the web is awe inspiring. I still can’t believe Figma is web-native (also born from the Not Adobe camp). That an application can feel so powerful, so fast, so well-crafted and be fully web-based should be a kind of lighthouse-archetype for all other sites lost in a sea of complexity and muck and unnecessary frameworks.