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Has the world become less colourful?

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Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#91

Post by sharikous »

The quantitative results about "pixels" are, experimentally speaking, garbage. The do not prove the point even if it feels true. A more thorough analysis would be welcome, possibly with different geographical points. E.g. let's do that in Iran, Russia, Tanzania and a European country. Are there correlations with traditional culture? And with the current political system?

I myself have anecdotical accounts of this. It couples with decreasing personalization. Today even the desktop picture is seldom changed by the end user.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#92

Post by lloydb »

Theodores wrote: post #2

Colour is not driven by fashion directly. There is always a technical innovation or regulatory change. The Ford Focus pioneered a new 'silver' paint that was formulated differently to 'silver' paints that had gone on before. 'Silver' was no longer an expensive option, the base model had it. This proved popular and the trend was set, silver cars took over at the start of the century, using the new formula paint. An ex…

Conversely, some trends in color are driven by overt, coordinated planning. Behold The Color Marketing Group [1]. According to their site, they meet "at local and international color forecasting events to interpret, create, forecast, and select colors with the goal of enhancing manufactured goods and services."

Here's some of the dreamlike prose with which they describe their attempt to capture the zeitgeist with a particular shade of blue [2]:

"Transition, evolution, and moving forward will continue to define the world and its population as 2022 emerges. Questions of trust and truth have been debated with many answered, but still more to come. Color Marketing Group’s North America 2022 Key Color, New Day, is the color response for a time still in transition.

"New Day suggests confidence and familiarity to greet 2022 with a sense of comfort. A light, fresh blue with red influences, New Day is an inspiring color designed to convey the classic connotation of hope and new beginnings.

"Whether a phone cover, hairdryer, or polo shirt, fashion and personal items are set to embrace New Day as a color equalizer. New Day presents a color that is not only new but suggests familiarity and ease. Genderless and ageless, it is a hue to blend with others, as well as allowing it to stand on its own."

[1] https://colormarketing.org/about

[2] https://colormarketing.org/2020/11/20/key-color-new-day/

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#93

Post by idontknowifican »

donkeyd wrote: post #89

I'm a man and I like colors. I have a red car, red shoes and colorful jackets. None of them are especially remarkable, they just have colors on them. I get remarks from colleagues about my shoes, I get remarks from random people on the street about my jacket. These people don't tend to be very positive about it, yet they feel the need to say something about my appearance, because I wear colorful stuff. I feel like pa…

i too feel like we see any modern deviation as a statement and not a meaningless preference, like food or people attraction.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#94

Post by chrismorgan »

I’ve spent quite a lot of time in India (mainly Hyderabad and Kolkata), and can report that India is much more colourful than Australia. Very garishly so, to my eyes. In clothing, building paint, night-time building lighting (… I found myself sometimes wishing coloured LEDs hadn’t been invented), just about everything imaginable. Weddings can be almost painful in the saturation of colour. But Indian cities are also extremely dusty, so that you only see the full extent of some of the colours in monsoon time when the rain washes it all away—especially the vibrant greens of foliage, which in other seasons often appear completely grey or slightly brown.

(Aside: I live in Victoria, down in the south east of Australia, and foliage colours are generally fairly muted. I’ve been in Darwin once, up in the northern tropical parts of Australia, and found it really weird to see eucalypts and such that clearly felt Australian to my eyes, but in the vibrant tropical greens that I associated (from experience) with Sri Lanka and parts of India.)

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#95

Post by lukeramsden »

towaway15463 wrote: post #76
somebodythere wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think people in the past probably just had a weaker preference for designs that go together in color and style.

That seems unlikely. Look at fashion and decor magazines from the past and you see lots of lively colours that are coordinated. If you go house hunting and see a couple houses that haven’t been updated for decades they have a definite palette.

Could possibly be because most households nowadays have to be dual-income, and so there's not a dedicated homemaker with the motivation to do that.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#96

Post by theden »

A few reasons I can think of that may explain why:

* Older photos had more saturation

* Colour photography and screens were new and a novelty, so it was pushed more to showcase their tech's capabilities

* Muted or monochrome colours by companies became the norm and associated with class (e.g., old rainbow apple logo vs newer monochrome logos), too much colour may be seen as kitschy

* Perhaps tied to the postmodern era as a differentiator, bright vibrant colours on products are seen as retro and/or cheap

* Also maybe tied to capitalism, vehicles, houses etc. with safe colours are better when it comes time to sell. I believe mass production would also result in more neutral colours

* With the ubiquity of cameras, more images of banal environments exist now

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#97

Post by enlyth »

dark-star wrote: post #83
ThePadawan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a self-perpetuating problem. Maybe people prefer (red, green, bright blue), but they fear that they won't be able to sell their car because of its color. So they buy white. (I read somewhere [so take this with a grain of salt] that this effect happens with marble kitchen countertops: not that many homeowners actually like them, but they believe that potential buyers might, so an overproportional amount of…

My current car is bright-yellow. People often ask me whether the color selection was an error, or something went wrong during the order process or whatever. They are really confused and in disbelief when I tell them that no, it was intentional. The advantage (other than me just liking fancier colors and disliking the prevalence of grey in cars) is that I can find my car in even the largest parking lot from very far a…

To give you my personal opinion, yellow clashes with the elegant and sleek style of the brand Mercedes is trying to present. When I see a yellow car, I either think 'cheap run down taxi' or 'high end sports car', it doesn't fit with the mid range semi-luxury vehicles aesthetically. I guess it's because what we're culturally accustomed to.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#98

Post by pteraspidomorph »

chrismorgan wrote: post #94

I’ve spent quite a lot of time in India (mainly Hyderabad and Kolkata), and can report that India is much more colourful than Australia. Very garishly so, to my eyes. In clothing, building paint, night-time building lighting (… I found myself sometimes wishing coloured LEDs hadn’t been invented), just about everything imaginable. Weddings can be almost painful in the saturation of colour. But Indian cities are also e…

It does depend on where you live. In southern europe red or orange clay roofing and a range of colors on traditional housing including yellow, pink, orange, etc. makes towns appear much more colorful. In parts of Portugal it's also traditional to paint a broad colorful bar along the bottom of whitewashed outer walls and around doors and windows; the color changes from place to place, and it can be black (I've seen that in the Azores) but also blue, green, scarlet, etc.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#99

Post by chrismorgan »

donkeyd wrote: post #89

I'm a man and I like colors. I have a red car, red shoes and colorful jackets. None of them are especially remarkable, they just have colors on them. I get remarks from colleagues about my shoes, I get remarks from random people on the street about my jacket. These people don't tend to be very positive about it, yet they feel the need to say something about my appearance, because I wear colorful stuff. I feel like pa…

I almost always wear hi-vis orange shirts, and my preferred hoodie is hi-vis yellow (pity it’s not orange, but that’s the one I’ve got and I don’t need another). Good quality, readily available, comfortable, cheap, and I stand out and am memorable in most contexts, which can be useful. Probably blinds people a little in direct sunlight, though no one’s ever mentioned such a thing. Occasionally throws people for a loop because they assume I must be some kind of tradie.

I started this back in 2010 as a safety measure when cycling from home to Uni, and rapidly decided I liked it.

I’ve progressively branded myself more and more in bright orange. Funny thing is it isn’t even close to my favourite colour.

My car is “velocity red”. Pity it’s not metallic orange or green or some other more interesting colour, but I certainly don’t care enough to foot the bill to repaint it.

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