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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)

#211

Post by d-us-vb »

Terr_ wrote: post #38

Seeing all those two-tone walls with green blow and cream above, I bet it isn't coincidental that those tones resemble plants under an overcast outdoor sky. Either because of unconscious choice, or because some designer theorized that people would be biologically primed to prefer it.

The purpose stated in the article in the mind of Birren was to reduce eye strain. I don't think it's so much that humans "prefer" it as such, more that we're very well adapted to work in environments with lots of it.

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

#212

Post by kmacdough »

SyzygyRhythm wrote: post #47
roughly wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

Two things can be true. And often that's precisely when we lose out with modern engineering that is much more single-minded.

> Their only advantage...

How are you coming to this conclusion?! Their warmer has very meaningful effects on processing, attention and other visual effects as is the point of the discussion in the first place. It's not clear what makes you so sure that color differentiation is essential and the other effects are irrelevant.

No I absolutely don't know what matters. But it seems neither do you.

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

#213

Post by vajrabum »

Theodores wrote: post #59
cynicalsecurity wrote: post #34

TL;DR: because mid-20th-century designers believed soft green reduced eye strain and improved focus. Basically the same nonsensical belief as in regard the dark mode nowadays. I don't even believe it's true. Green is just an army colour, that's pretty much it. Army uses army colours. Mystery solved.

As the son of a machine tools salesman, I call the article bullshit. Sometimes things just need to be painted and sometimes you just need that WW2 surplus paint to do the job, with the colour not mattering one bit. With anything, an academic can thread together a theory that neatly joins the dots to sound feasible, but my bet is that 99% of all engineers are stronger at physics than color theory.

Uh, I think they didn't use WW2 surplus anything when they build Oak Ridge and Hanford before the end of WW2. I also think given that those two plants were key bits of the Manhattan Project that they didn't cheap out on anything. And the color dude was in fact hired by DuPont who built those two plants and adopted his theories because they increased measured factory productivity and safety. Lastly the OG dude in the article was not an engineer. In fact he was an art school dropout who was very interested in color. So no on the no.

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

#214

Post by djmips »

Terr_ wrote: post #38

Seeing all those two-tone walls with green blow and cream above, I bet it isn't coincidental that those tones resemble plants under an overcast outdoor sky. Either because of unconscious choice, or because some designer theorized that people would be biologically primed to prefer it.

Good thought! See also the Go-Away Green comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Away_Green

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

#216

Post by sph »

cade wrote: post #197
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…

Ha. I didn't realize until I checked the comments that I worked with Beth in Nashville too! Not sure what that says about how I consume content these days... but she's delightful. Two of my favorite classes in college were Color Studies and Typography. As a long time back end engineer, I would encourage anyone unfamiliar to spend at least a little bit of time looking into both. If you're at all intrigued, treat yours…

Great book. I'm a great believer in leaving books behind for other people to enjoy. I left this one when I moved out of my previous flat, and I regret it every day.

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

#217

Post by anymouse123456 »

adrian_b wrote: post #189
anymouse123456 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong, or just living in a place where the power is so bad, it causes premature failures. The claimed extra longevity of LED bulbs has not materialized for me. They seem to fail at roughly the same frequency that incandescent bulbs did in my home, which makes them about 10x to 15x more expensive.

Many complain about this, because they have been fooled into buying low-quality lamps, with bad cooling or bad electronic components. I have many Philips LED lamps bought some 10 to 15 years ago, which were put in Edison sockets for incandescent lamps, and none of them has become defective during all these years. However, even at that time, it was not their cheapest model, but one that was claimed to be long-life and…

I did choose very expensive options (high CRI and ~$14/ea), but I think the problem is that I have enclosed glass lamps from the 60's that don't ventilate heat properly for the LEDs, so they fail every year or 2, just like the incandecents used to.
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