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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)

#151

Post by xyzzy123 »

Great discussion on colour theory but I think it skips over the fact that chemistry and economics were also real constraints. Paints that don't fade easily, chemically inert, durable etc and can be produced in enormous volume are not that common. Practical stuff like, how easy does it catch fire, do solvents degrade it. Most important: is it CHEAP?

Also by 1944 there would have been a ready made supply chain due to demand from the navy, which would have picked it for similar reasons and consumed it in enormous volume.

I think, practically, control rooms are chrome oxide green (you get to add as much titanium as you like - thats cheap as dirt too EDIT: it would have been lead actually in the 40s) for much the same reason that barns are red.

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

#152

Post by justonceokay »

roughly wrote: post #29
jscheel wrote: post #14

I got through this entire article before I realized it was written by someone I worked with back in my agency days. Beth is an awesome designer with a great eye. Nice to see her on the front page here. Now, to the content: I often wonder how much we have lost with our endless quest for minimalism. We can't even make buttons look like buttons anymore. Affordances have become anemic at times. Designers who think and ca…

I'm reminded of an article a while back talking about how the change from sodium streetlights to LED streetlights had a whole lot of unforeseen effects on animals, people's sleep patterns, driver awareness and visibility, etc. due to color changes. There was a comment on the article from an old civil engineer saying "no, these were not unforeseen, we actually did the research back in the day to figure out what color…

I wouldn’t change it for the world. I grew up in Minneapolis and moved to Seattle, so I went in a single night from sodium lights everywhere in a 500 mile radius to LED. It feels safer (subjective), more pleasant to perform tasks in, and less depressing. I should note I care 0% what the animals think of the whole affair.

This is especially important at high latitudes where for months of the year the street lights provide more illumination than the sun for most working people.

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

#153

Post by justonceokay »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #151

Great discussion on colour theory but I think it skips over the fact that chemistry and economics were also real constraints. Paints that don't fade easily, chemically inert, durable etc and can be produced in enormous volume are not that common. Practical stuff like, how easy does it catch fire, do solvents degrade it. Most important: is it CHEAP? Also by 1944 there would have been a ready made supply chain due to d…

I doubt the manhattan project had an issue funding paint

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

#154

Post by wredcoll »

next_xibalba wrote: post #130
whostolemyhat wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the next sentence?

Yes, of course. Let me clarify: The implication of the quoted sentence is that the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on Japan was awful and indefensible. The author then transitions to “but I want to talk about part of the Manhattan project that isn’t really related to the bombings.” What other explanation would there be for inserting this comment about U.S. history? My comment was addressing the defensibility of the bombin…

I'm not sure how much it really matters but it is mildly annoying when people's brains just shut off when they hear atomic/nuclear.

It's perfectly reasonable to make an argument that they were "not needed" in terms of ending ww2, it's much, much more difficult to argue that fewer people would have died if they weren't used.

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

#155

Post by xyzzy123 »

justonceokay wrote: post #153
xyzzy123 wrote: post #151

Great discussion on colour theory but I think it skips over the fact that chemistry and economics were also real constraints. Paints that don't fade easily, chemically inert, durable etc and can be produced in enormous volume are not that common. Practical stuff like, how easy does it catch fire, do solvents degrade it. Most important: is it CHEAP? Also by 1944 there would have been a ready made supply chain due to d…

I doubt the manhattan project had an issue funding paint

Think for a minute about why they worked in shacks.

Also worth noting that Birren was a paid consultant for DuPont - the company that made the paint. From that perspective alone you would kinda expect he is gonna pick colours they already produce reliably at scale.

He also consulted for army, coast guard and navy so whatever colours you pick for hazard marking in an industrial setting have to be _vaguely_ congruent or you're going to cause accidents.

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

#156

Post by HerbManic »

Rantenki wrote: post #39

While I am sure there are stylistic reasons for using that color, there is another common reason why you see blue-green colors in paint, especially in older industrial environments: zinc chromate/phosphate corrosion protective coatings. Zinc chromate primer is the color you see on the interior surfaces of some aircraft, to inhibit corrosion. Zinc phosphate is more of a gray in most cases, although varying paint chemi…

This reminding me of something my granddad demonstrated once.

He used to work on yachts a fair bit and over the years he noticed the fading patterns for different colour paints.

Yellow paint would fade, red paint would fade. But if you mixed them 50/50 into orange, it wouldn't fade. That's why they had so many orange boats in the bay. Figure that one out.

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

#158

Post by AriedK »

mcfly_c-137 wrote: post #93
SyzygyRhythm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's why they were the color they were That doesn't seem right to me. Sodium (and mercury) vapor lamps are the color they are due to physics, and were chosen because they're very efficient (and long lasting). Low-pressure sodium is the best and worst of these; essentially monochromatic but fantastic efficiency. Their only advantage, color-wise, is that the light can be filtered out easily (they used to be widely…

The monochromatic light emitted from sodium lamps is also close to the peak sensitivity of the human eye. Colours are not distinguishable, but contrast is much enhanced compared to “cooler” light sources. *edit: but it’s the overwhelmingly larger lifespan (20-30k hrs) that led to the wide adoption as streetlights. And I guess, the same is true for the change to led today, because of less power consumption.

The power savings are minor btweeen LED and low presssure sodium lamps. The LED streetlights emit light along the full spectrum, the sodium lamps only at 589 nm. The LEDs are more controllable so smart dimming ( when there are no cars) is a perceived advantage.

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

#160

Post by [deleted] »

FpUser wrote: post #103
jscheel wrote: post #14

I got through this entire article before I realized it was written by someone I worked with back in my agency days. Beth is an awesome designer with a great eye. Nice to see her on the front page here. Now, to the content: I often wonder how much we have lost with our endless quest for minimalism. We can't even make buttons look like buttons anymore. Affordances have become anemic at times. Designers who think and ca…

Modern designers do not give rat's ass about ergonomics and functionality. Their ultimate design is an empty screen with some light gray color on white text and inability to distinguish between active (can interact with) and info elements

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