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Has the world become less colourful?

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Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason for that seems obvious to me. Grey, steel, white and black will work in basically every kitchen. If you want a more colorful pallet in any room in your house, then you need to put a lot more thought into planning it. I think most people aren’t highly motivated to do that.

>Grey, steel, white and black will work in basically every kitchen. I don't understand that argument. My toaster only needs to work in my kitchen, not every kitchen. From a manufacture's point of view I get it. It is cheaper to produce 3 colors than 54.

We're talking about the context of this "study". If people are asked which toaster they want to take home, the vast majority of them will have a kitchen where "grey, steel, white or black" works the best, even if they prefer another color. They're not going to redesign their entire kitchen for a particular toaster.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#152
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…

Designers: We use gray colors as a starting point in value evaluation. This gives us the ability to see the form clearly.

Marketing: When presented with a colorful choice, people will buy the gray/white and neutral palette. We will create a colorful campaign to ignite emotional response.

Business Development: We love this approach. It makes business sense. Go for it.

Psychologist: In the past, people were open-minded and tolerated more artistic and individual choices. Nowadays, every one is in search of the safe zone for social validation and compliance. Big Brands create a culture of subtle colors and people love it.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#153
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…

> 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'm a man and I've recently started wearing a lot of "Hawaiian" shirts (loud, colorful prints) and I get a lot of compliments on the street. Not sure if it's about the color or about wearing something that reads as a "party" shirt, though.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#154
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beside, color is all in your mind. Out of it, it's just electromagnetic waves. It's like saying that food is just nutrients, or sound/music just vibrations. Color is an experience.

>>Color is an experience. And where is your experience outside your mind? Whatever they are, where are qualia outside the model of your world? Where is your pain whe you get beaten up?

I don't disagree with the points you were/are trying to make. I disagree as to their relevance in a discussion about colors.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#155
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 do the same. I either have a flashy top, or a flashy bottom. And I love it, because it gives more occasions to get compliments. Not only people can comment about how the clothe fits, but also how the color highlights my skin (I'm pretty tanned all year round, and flashy colors makes it even more stand out).

But yeah, people are afraid of standing out. Once a friend told me he'd love to do the same, but he did not have the guts to do it, so he keeps wearing dim clothes.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#156
post #129

I think that the conclusion this thread draws is wrong, because less overall colors make color accents stand out more. In other words: If everything pops out, nothing does. Most of our furniture and walls are white, gray/stainless steel or black, and variations from it. Yet, we use color accents in most rooms, e.g. orange towels in the bathroom, or lilac bedclothes. So while our place confirms the overall trend, it d…

> Another important aspect is that the color I like today is not the color I like tomorrow This is a pretty big one. Every time I look at buying something colored, I really need to think hard about it. I like the color now, but later I may not. And I'm not going to replace something that isn't broken just because I no longer like the color. There's also a matter of getting things to match. You're basically stuck with…

Presumably people weren’t wedded to colors in the past either.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#157
Sometimes people shame of what there wearing colors or something else but you chose what you want! So everyone can wear be what he wants to be/wear. Its crazy if you think about it people dont like colors because of colors everything is possible. Its just like gravity. HACKER501.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#158

There is a famous if possibly apocryphal study where random people were asked to rate various toaster colors, and everybody swooned over lime green and hot pink and whatnot. After they finished, they were told that as their prize they could take one of the toasters home -- and everybody chose white, stainless steel or black.

I remember reading a feature/native advertisement about Lenovo's ThinkPad focus groups a while back (I think on Ars or The Verge) that had a similar conclusion.

People would go crazy over a red or white ThinkPad in focus groups, but would never buy one because they couldn't see themselves as "that person" with the red laptop at a meeting.

Lenovo did make both a red and white x100e a long while ago, but those were more like netbooks.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#159
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 do the same. When people remarking about it are a bit malicious I always say: "I can afford to have X that way. I don't have to blend in or be careful what other people say about my choice of colours."

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#160
post #7

> Consider this study, which analysed the colour of everyday objects over time. > Percentage of Pixels across all photos Does anybody have a citation for "this study" ? It's implicitly implied that it comes from some mega cloud storage of personal and professional photos, but it'd be nice to see the actual source and read the methodoloy. ADDENDUM: Found it. https://lab.sciencemuseum.org.uk/colour-shape-using-computer…

Looks like we went from bronze into steel colors, with some added blue.

That site didn't look at clothes, furniture, and walls, that I imagine saw the largest changes.

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