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Why so many control rooms were seafoam green (2025)

bethmathews.substack.com

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Re: Why so many control rooms were seafoam green (2025)

#111

Post by Loughla »

eggsome wrote: post #76
Loughla wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was a mechanic and crew chief working on F-14's during his time in the air force. His two takeaways from his service were: 1. No one should ever join the military for any reason ever forever, and 2. Somebody needs to color code literally anything. He talked about how the wiring schematics were a maze, made worse by using only non-labeled gray and black wires with connections and mounts that were the same co…

Surely you mean F-15 right? (F-14 was exclusive to the Navy + Iran exports)

Womp womp. Yes. F15. Somewhere my father is screaming.

Re: Why so many control rooms were seafoam green (2025)

#113

Post by Spooky23 »

mikestorrent wrote: post #65
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure tons of people along the way "noticed" but if you're selling LEDs or you're paid by the LED people to create marketing to convince people that LEDs are gonna save the planet, you're not gonna bring that up.

IDK if you've noticed but we are all lighting our house with bulbs that use 1/10th the amount of electricity as incandescents did. I like the color spectrum of a real lightbulb better, too, but not enough to pay 10x in power. I make up for it by using all kinds of random bulbs all over the place so that the aggregate light in the room fills more of the spectrum than if I coordinated them all to be the same.

The problem is we went from a market that consisted of cheapo/good bulbs at various brightness levels to a market where Walmart and Home Depot have like 60 linear feet of bulbs.

There’s no standards and people are clueless and confused. There are awesome LEDs, but more often you see have harsh, terrible light.

Re: Why so many control rooms were seafoam green (2025)

#114

Post by Spooky23 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #33
mikepurvis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that too. My house had significant chunks painted a vivid aquamarine when I moved in 2018, and my now-ex insisted that we paint over it all in grey. After she moved out, I put up greens, yellows, brown, and blue all over the house. It's not quite as "public pool" feeling as that original aquamarine, but it's certainly more lively than grey/white. Funny enough though, when I had a designer come in to take measu…

It's common for homes especially when prepped for sale because neutral colors won't clash with whatever the potential buyer might want to bring in e.g. furniture, artwork, or other decor. Most of the rooms in my house are painted in colors and I mostly like it but it can sometimeds feel fatiguing. I've thought about repainting in a neutral gray or green.

2018 was peak chip and jojo. Every suburban chick was into grey and barn doors.

Re: Why so many control rooms were seafoam green (2025)

#115

Post by beedle_mcdeedle »

I work as an automation technician for my province's electrical utility in Quebec Canada and all the hydro dams in my region still use this color for the control room paneling! I work in and around this color every day and it hasn't gotten old yet. The dams have been around for nearly a century and I've always appreciated their old industrial vibe.

Re: Why so many control rooms were seafoam green (2025)

#116

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

srmatto wrote: post #49
dogscatstrees wrote: post #9

This article is a gem, thank you. Now off to Sherwin-Williams to see what the equivalent color names are. I wonder if there are matching formula.

Would be cool to get an original copy of "Colors for Interiors: Historical and Modern by Faber Birren" and create color matches assuming it's not faded too much. I wonder if he created some kind of pigmentation ratio (or however paint coloring works) that he shared somewhere?

Planet Money had a story about the quantization of color[0]. Prior to this, people would essentially bring in a flower, piece of pottery, etc that they wanted to color match for the particular piece at hand.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2024/07/19/1197961103/pantone-colors-law...

Re: Why so many control rooms were seafoam green (2025)

#117

Post by emmelaich »

bloak wrote: post #55

Also hospitals, though I think it's called "spinach-leaf green" then.

Yes, a feature of the movie "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" is a sort of sickly green.

I think hospitals have moved entirely away from green, probably because of its association with industry and asylum use.

Re: Why so many control rooms were seafoam green (2025)

#119

Post by jschveibinz »

dlcarrier wrote: post #66
somat wrote: post #7

I wonder if the designers of cold war soviet planes read the same color theory because their cockpits are always a very particular indescribable shade of green. There were also very specific colors for subsystems, yellow for fuel, purple for hydraulics etc. Much more than the contemporary US designs.

I've noticed that both American and Soviet planes used greenish colors, but the American ones are a yellowish green, while the Soviet ones are a bluish green. I've always wondered if the American yellowish green was chosen because it's similar to the color of the zinc chromate primer used on those aircraft, so the transparency of the paint wouldn't be an issue.

The yellowish-green is the zinc chromate "passivation" coating to help prevent corrosion.

Re: Why so many control rooms were seafoam green (2025)

#120

Post by foobarian »

mikestorrent wrote: post #65
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure tons of people along the way "noticed" but if you're selling LEDs or you're paid by the LED people to create marketing to convince people that LEDs are gonna save the planet, you're not gonna bring that up.

IDK if you've noticed but we are all lighting our house with bulbs that use 1/10th the amount of electricity as incandescents did. I like the color spectrum of a real lightbulb better, too, but not enough to pay 10x in power. I make up for it by using all kinds of random bulbs all over the place so that the aggregate light in the room fills more of the spectrum than if I coordinated them all to be the same.

The really awesome thing about the 1/10 power consumption is that the existing circuits/wiring/sockets now suddenly support 10x the light without burning down your house. I'm a sucker for well lit space and these lights are just heaven for me.
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