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Why is the world losing color?

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91–100 of 309 posts

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#91
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Reminiscent of halo cars in the automotive industry. Fancy flagship vehicles produced to show off the brand and bring attention (to their other vehicles), but not necessarily to become profit makers themselves.

Or the Mac Pro.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#92

Random thoughts. Movies: Movies descended from live theater, which was not realistic by definition, so things had to be attention-getting in order to draw people into the reality of the story, including use of color. Older movies, and older colorful movies, were closer to that tradition and therefore kept some of that impressionism, which faded as "realism" became the thing to do in movies. Cars: Searching online I f…

> Company logos have been getting simpler for a long time

This is driven in part by a shift towards mobile screens and the compression in visual space. Even on the desktop the favicon has an influence with this deconstruction.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#93

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…

"Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone."

What a load of crap. Where do you live, in a cave? have you ever been in a jungle perhaps? what about birds with colorful feathers? you want to wash out those colors too? jesus, nature dictates and nature is full of vivid colors. so your argument goes down the drain.

there is no such thing as modern taste. there are trends dictated by a handful of psychotic gatekeepers who got hooked on their own farts.

old movies had the absolute best coloring. compare those movies to the ones seen now and you are on the verge of retching. these superficial, devoid of human value superprocessed heaps of shit they try to force feed to people, just plain unwatchable. not just the story lacks, it has zero message, nothing to chew on, just some brainwashing action scenes. that's good for the plebs they say while squeezing people for money.

absolutely reprehensible, that a handful of gatekeepers put people into these literal psycho gardens that is devoid of anything resembling human. what's missing is the human part. the humanity is slowly missing from everything.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#94
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see the same thing in music recordings during the 60s. Stereo and quadrophonic sound was new so everything was panned all over the place really hard. Drums all on the left, vocals hard right etc. It's an interesting effect sometimes, but generally a gimmick and/or distraction. We don't really do that anymore, for good reason.

Because the analog equipment back then could only do binary panning.

That’s totally not true. The original stereo patent from the 1930s is based on M+S signals, not separate channels, and was born out of a desire to position sound across a stage (movies).

By the time the hard-panned records of the 60s were made the technology was already old, it was just a stylistic choice.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#95
My small victory is to set the tv on a wider color space, and so make youtube more vivid. 5% of things will look a little strange, but the majority looks more beautiful. Note you actually need a modern tv with a REAL wide color space.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#96
post #49

One interesting thread here is the long shadow of Greek and later Roman statuary and architecture on Western European self image - the marble statues, columns, and architecture of the Roman empire were taken as the origin story for Western culture - "we were an empire built on philosophers and artists, and look at the (gleaming white) purity of their works." It turns out, of course, that all those gleaming white stat…

> the Greeks and Romans were not cultures of conformity or austerity - quite the opposite, but the seeds of the philosophy sank in hard, and here we are. I don’t think anyone thinks they were. They are usually assumed to be hedonistic in popular culture

I think you really start to see the fetishization of the Greeks and Romans in the Neoclassicism movements in the 18th century as an aesthetic, and I'm actually not sure how much was known about the actual Greek and Roman lifestyles (Roman, in particular - a big lot of this is tied up with the notions of Empire) at the time.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#97
Not sure it's worth a whole blog post, but I think we have more ways to express ourselves than ever... the color hasn't gone, it's moved.

I might resell my house or my car but my PC is a like looking into a rainbow supernova. My clothes have patterns and prints that weren't even technically possible 100 years ago. I can go buy paint for my walls at any hardware store that would cost a fortune during the renaissance. I can print any artwork I want at home at amazing quality or pay a little more for an even better pro print. I've got a number of screens in my house that can reproduce more colors than I can differentiate.

The world is more colorful than ever, I don't think we have to point to the tired car examples or temporary trends in home decoration or filmmaking and claim something's missing.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#98
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminiscent of halo cars in the automotive industry. Fancy flagship vehicles produced to show off the brand and bring attention (to their other vehicles), but not necessarily to become profit makers themselves.

Yeah, my theory was that the yellow ones caught people's eye since it stood out from the visual clutter, but yellow isn't anyone's favorite color, so you end up buying blue or red...

As someone who's own{s|ed} 2 yellow cars (A Mercedes SLK230 and a Mustang MachE) This makes me sad. I've also owned 3 red cars and one blue one so my color choices aren't exactly in line with the sales data.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#99
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…

Cars are not buy it for life items. I generally buy a 3 year old car because it is about half the price of a new one - but I'm limited to what color I can find. If I bought new cars I could get whatever color - except that new car buyers won't be seen in a 4 year old car, and they can only afford to upgrade (to the extent they can) if the car has resale value so they care about what color they (the dealer) thinks will sell.

When we bought our current house it was perfect except the colors were an awful neutral grey - I had a hard time convincing my wife despite the otherwise perfection, and only did because we spent several thousand dollars getting it repainted before we moved in. I'm sure the sellers realtor thought the neutral colors were a great idea, but they almost cost several thousand dollars (there was a bidding war when we bought the house, we almost didn't bid and so the sellers would have lost).

The important point is if you like color make sure you pay for it, and reject things if they don't have the color you want.

Re: Why is the world losing color?

#100

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…

You can see the same thing in music recordings during the 60s. Stereo and quadrophonic sound was new so everything was panned all over the place really hard. Drums all on the left, vocals hard right etc. It's an interesting effect sometimes, but generally a gimmick and/or distraction. We don't really do that anymore, for good reason.

IIRC, the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper” album was among the first stereo-mixed albums released. As much fame as that particular album has, the original mix is really bad. Drums all left, guitars all right, nothing in the center. It sounds weird to modern ears!

Also IIRC, I believe George Harrison’s kid remixed it properly, just a handful of years ago.

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