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Why is the world losing color?

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Re: Why is the world losing color?

#21

Post by zuInnp »

For me, it is very apparent in movies nowadays.

I watched the Lord of the Rings over Christmas, and I was stunned by how colorful the movie is. Even in the darkest scenes in Mordor, it felt more colorful than movies of today.

Today, it looks like everything is shot in log and then someone does not add the saturation back. But I am also guilty of this .. when I got my new camera, my graded clips also looked very flat, but I like(d) that look because of all the movies and youtube videos looking like this.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#22

Post by smallmancontrov »

Mistletoe wrote: post #13
crazygringo wrote: post #3

It's not "losing" color. At periods when technology resulted in new color possibilities, people went overboard with color. Make all the things colorful!! Think of the technicolor sixties. And we can go back in history and see the same thing with new clothing pigments, new paint pigments. But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone…

Speak for yourself then because I think this looks great and fun. https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1jnr4bz/... By the comments, I don't think I'm the only one. Look at the logo evolution. https://www.reddit.com/r/LivingMas/comments/17yizkw/evolutio... Why is Taco Bell slowly losing color like a vampire is draining it of fun and blood? I see these driving around and I just shake my head, what about…

I dunno, I think the purple and white is quite in line with the degree to which Taco Bell food represents Mexican culture and food.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#23

Post by efavdb »

c22 wrote: post #18
fguerraz wrote: post #4

I would argue that the main reason is because everything is about money, and the shorter marketability of everything. Colors are polarising, and affect the unsold inventory and perceived resale value. Why manufacture objects in 10 different colours if you know the green one is going to be a tough sell? Why buy a blue car if you think you’re going to sell it back after 2 years and struggle to do so? You don’t want thi…

A long time ago I worked at a children's toy store and among other things I was responsible for ordering and restocking the bins full of small loose toys that cost under a buck or two. A weird thing I noticed was that if an item came in an assortment of colors that included yellow, yellow was always the slowest color to sell. Often bins would end up with just yellow inventory after all the other colors had sold. But…

awesome insight. i've heard this referred to as the "site merchandising" problem. There are some products that are there to attract people / give them a choice, but they don't sell themselves.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#25

Post by kelseyfrog »

Color is the last vestige of ornamentation[1].

Modern design didn’t kill color. It put it on probation. Stripped of aesthetic authority, color now has to justify its existence or get cut. No more freedom to wander or express, it shows up for assigned tasks only: branding, signage, error states, traffic lights.

In the cult of "form follows function," color met the axe. We no longer trust it to create, only to comply. Expressiveness? No. Just signal. Never art. A century after Ornament and Crime, we put color on a PIP. Beauty must be functionalized.

1. https://www2.gwu.edu/~art/Temporary_SL/177/pdfs/Loos.pdf

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#26

Post by pixl97 »

delichon wrote: post #8
crazygringo wrote: post #3

It's not "losing" color. At periods when technology resulted in new color possibilities, people went overboard with color. Make all the things colorful!! Think of the technicolor sixties. And we can go back in history and see the same thing with new clothing pigments, new paint pigments. But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone…

> It's visually exhausting. This. It's about managing stimulation levels and contrast. If the environment is continually shouting at you it's hard to hear the whispers, where the meaning is. I bet one of those color comparison graphs of the average website in 1998 through today would show the same trend. I wish the inflationary trend in linguistic overstatement did the same.

Pretty much every retail store is like this. I mean, it's been this way for a while, but there is so much loud colorful advertizing that having a quiet place to live in feels much better.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#27

Post by WD-42 »

Mistletoe wrote: post #13
crazygringo wrote: post #3

It's not "losing" color. At periods when technology resulted in new color possibilities, people went overboard with color. Make all the things colorful!! Think of the technicolor sixties. And we can go back in history and see the same thing with new clothing pigments, new paint pigments. But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone…

Speak for yourself then because I think this looks great and fun. https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1jnr4bz/... By the comments, I don't think I'm the only one. Look at the logo evolution. https://www.reddit.com/r/LivingMas/comments/17yizkw/evolutio... Why is Taco Bell slowly losing color like a vampire is draining it of fun and blood? I see these driving around and I just shake my head, what about…

Are you young? I've noticed the upcoming generation has begun rejecting their parent's bland aesthetics.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#28

Post by appleorchard46 »

crazygringo wrote: post #3

It's not "losing" color. At periods when technology resulted in new color possibilities, people went overboard with color. Make all the things colorful!! Think of the technicolor sixties. And we can go back in history and see the same thing with new clothing pigments, new paint pigments. But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone…

The example they use of Baroque art actually perfectly demonstrates this. It primarily consists of neutral tones that integrate well with the blues and muted oranges woven through it. Not exactly riotous color, as they put it - but very similar to the use of color you see both in modern designs and older cultural traditions.

(edit) I do think we've swung a little hard in the direction of color minimalism recently; it can get oppressive when combined with the trend towards minimalism in structure and form too. But I think it's fine for the default to err toward inoffensiveness and color to be used purposefully, and if/when public opinion shifts away from that there isn't exactly any impediment to design shifting with it.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#30

Post by colechristensen »

fguerraz wrote: post #4

I would argue that the main reason is because everything is about money, and the shorter marketability of everything. Colors are polarising, and affect the unsold inventory and perceived resale value. Why manufacture objects in 10 different colours if you know the green one is going to be a tough sell? Why buy a blue car if you think you’re going to sell it back after 2 years and struggle to do so? You don’t want thi…

I think it goes one layer further, everyone is worried that everyone else is worried that colors don't sell. "I like this used bright pink Honda, but I'm worried no one else will buy it if I want to sell so I'm not going to buy it"

Like it's a perceptual disease where there's a difference between real preferences and perceived preferences and people are making decisions based on their wrong assumptions about everyone else, and when everyone is doing it it becomes true even though we're collectively all making less optimal choices.

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