Colourful Language

MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Eleanor Maclure

Colourful Language LONDON COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION MA GRAPHIC DESIGN PART TIME PERSONAL TUTOR: JOHN BATESON MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Eleanor Maclure

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my personal tutor John, and all the other tutors and fellow students on MA Graphic Design at London College of Communication for their advice and encouragement, it has been much appreciated. I would also like to say a special thanks to Richard Ashworth, Karen Skorski and Lisa Roberts at the Society of Dyers and Colourists for their time, expertise and opinions and to Simon Tiutwein, David Batchelor, Patrick Baty, Rob and Nick Carter, Karen Haller, Janet Best and Alan Dye for allowing me to interview them for this project. Also to Colin Jones and everyone at Blindness In Greenwich for their contributions and openness in discussing their experiences of colour.

I would also like to acknowledge everyone who participated in the survey for this project, your contributions have helped to demonstrate the sheer variety in the way we describe colours, making the outcome of the project a viable proposition. I am also eternally grateful to Chris Duke and the print team at Blissetts for their endeavours to produce all the printed material for this project on time, to a tight budget.

Finally, thanks to Andrew and my family for their support and understanding over the last two years and everyone else who has given their time or expertise to my research, without which this project would not have been possible.

Contents

01 Introduction 06 Development of Outputs

02 Proposal Outline 07 Evaluation

2.1 Field of Study 7.1 Evaluation of Methodology 2.2 Focus 7.2 Evaluation of Outcome 2.3 Research Question 7.3 Critical Reflection 2.4 Project Aims 7.4 Personal Reflection 2.5 Relationship to Design Practise 2.6 Audience 08 Conclusion 2.7 Validity

03 Context List of Illustrations

3.1 The Physics of Colour References 3.2 The Biology of Colour Perception 3.3 Theories of Colour Further Reading 3.4 Colour and Language 3.5 Colour Naming Appendices A-C

04 Key Concepts

05 Research Methodologies

5.1 Focus 1 5.1.1 Essays on Colour 5.1.2 Strooping the Colour 5.1.3 Colour my Words 5.1.4 When is Not Green 5.1.5 Colour by Numbers

5.2 Focus 2 5.2.1 Searching for the 5.2.2 Transforming the Rainbow 5.2.3 Looking for 5.2.4 Say What You See 5.2.5 Deconstructing the Rainbow

5.3 Focus 3 5.3.1 Quantitative Research 5.3.2 Qualitative Research

Report Aims

This report aims to deliver an informative and comprehensive account and analysis of the research, methodologies and outcomes of Colourful Language, the investigation submitted as the Major Project for my MA Graphic Design, at London College of Communication.

Colour and language, the subjects of this investigation are both vast fields of study, with overlaps into a number of other areas. Ample context has been provided in this report as a reflection of the size of the subject area and the quantity of research undertaken to support the project overall. The framework of the investigation is established through the inclusion of key points, concepts and considerations from the original proposal for the project. This should allow the reader to gain a full understanding of the background, purpose and aims of the research.

The various research methodologies employed throughout the project are described in detail and evaluated to give both an account and analysis of the progress of the project, as is the development of the design outcomes that have subsequently resulted from the research.

It is intended that this document synthesise and rationalize the concepts that inform, support and have developed at a result of the project. The structure and content of the report aims to unite the numerous components of this investigation and present the project as a cohesive and reasoned body of work with a considered conclusion.

Introduction “The philosopher Wittgenstein famously asked ‘How do I know that this is ?—It would be an answer to say: I have learnt English’”.

(Batchelor, 2000 pp.91) MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Introduction

“The philosopher Wittgenstein famously asked ‘How do These questions and others are but some of the issues I know that this color is red?—It would be an answer to that afflict the way we use language to describe say: I have learnt English.’” (Batchelor, 2000 pp.91) and define our experience of colour. The system is complicated further, in that there are no standards But how do we know what is red, or or green? of individual colour perception. Colours vary with How does our understanding of these colours relate to context, surface texture and viewing conditions, while how we label them? And how well do our colour names colour terms are imprecise, have no chromatic content reflect the colours we are trying to identify? in themselves and there is no way of knowing that my notion of a particular hue is the same as anyone We all use colour names to describe things in everyday else’s. Trying to devise a system based on language, to life, whether to describe someone’s appearance, give accurately define colours is an impossible task. directions, or decipher colour-coded information. But how well do we use these terms? How consistent and Despite this we use language to reference colour all precise are we when it comes to defining what is claret, the time, we have too. Often there is no other available or burgundy? Would we feel confident asserting means of referring to the particular hue we are trying that something was rather than ? Do we to describe. That the language system we use to talk know the difference between and ? Is there about colour is inherently flawed, is all the more reason a real difference? why it should be studied and analysed to further our understanding. How effectively can this aspect of our communication function, when our own understanding of colour terms is insufficient or our language itself is lacking the precise descriptions we are grasping for?

Proposal Outline

MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Project Outline

This section outlines key points from the original proposal submitted for this project. It details the parameters and frames of reference established for the investigation.

2.1 FIELD OF STUDY 2.2 FOCUS

The subject of this investigation unites two independent Within the fields of study previously outlined, the focus and largely unrelated fields of study: colour theory of this investigation is defined as Colour Naming. It can and linguistics. It could more accurately be described be described as the process by which we equate the as being situated where these two areas intersect, the colours we perceive through our visual sensory system marriage of colour and language. with how we identify them using our language system. It is concerned with the body of colour terms that exist in Both of these areas have long histories and incorporate English, their relationships to each other, their real world many concepts and theories. Colour theory alone application and the problems that can occur when using bridges a number of subjects from: physics and language to identify and describe colours. optics, to the visual arts, to biology and neuroscience. Linguistics is also a substantial field of study, so in order to contain the scope of the research I have concentrated my attention only on the concepts that are particularly relevant to the research question. That both fields have well-established bodies of knowledge has validated my own investigation and provided a wealth of information with which to support it.

I have also elected to focus this research on English colour names only. Although colour naming across different language systems is a rich area of study, it is a whole subject in itself and too extensive to investigate in any detail as it raises problems of translation and cross- cultural sensitivity.

To further define the areas of interest, within colour theory I will specifically be concerned with colour perception and semiotics, with regards to linguistics. 2.3 RESEARCH QUESTION 2.4 PROJECT AIMS

The research question originally stated in the proposal The fundamental aim of this research project is to for this project was: contribute to the understanding of how language is used to express colour, through observations, quantitative research, analysis and particularly visual HOW WE TALK ABOUT COLOUR: representation. Observing the way we use language to describe The problems of using language to describe colour has colours. been commented on by a number of writers, described in more detail in the Context section of this report. Colour stretches the limits of our descriptive abilities This question has stood throughout the project but can and consequently our language. be expanded and clarified as focussing on the names of colours and in the following ways: While there are evidently a number of difficulties with colour and language, this project has never set out 1. The names of colours: Analysis of the body of to solve them. Several thousand years of philosophy words used to describe colour, how they can be have failed to produce an adequate theory or model categorised, their origins, their meanings. of colour and some aspects of the problem of the relationship between colour and language are 2. The names of colours: how do they visually relate theoretically impossible to solve, due to the nature of to each other. For example how does red relate to verbal language itself. , maroon or terracotta? How do these colour terms relate to each other in turn? The discourse on colour and language, through philosophy, linguistics and even fine art exists largely 3. The names of colours: The consistency of their as text, resulting in the discussion of a subject application, interpretation, definition and which is entrenched in our visual culture, but using understanding. For example, the variation in how a system of communication widely acknowledged colour terms can be used to label colours and how as utterly deficient in describing it. Therefore, what varying colours can be identified using the same this project does aim to achieve is a contribution to term. the understanding of the problem through visual documentation and representation, to use graphic Although broken down into three sections, the order design to show what the relationships between colours is not indicative of the importance of each concept. and their names look like. The first part is intended to carry less weight in the investigation, primarily acting as a foundation for the rest of the research, which is comprised of parts two and three, and should generate the more interesting and visually appealing aspect of the project. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

2.5 RELATIONSHIP TO DESIGN PRACTICE 2.6 AUDIENCE

Although the focus of my research is not directly related The audience for this project was defined in the to graphic design itself, both colour and language are proposal as primarily being designers and those who key features of visual communication and vital tools work in the creative industry or visual arts. This could for a graphic designer. Colour naming is, ultimately, a also be extended to include anyone who works with communication problem, and although it is a potentially colour as part of their profession. unsolvable problem graphic design processes are a valid method for exploring it. However, the research carried out for this project and the visual outcomes produced have the possibility of As described earlier, a disproportionate amount of appealing to anyone who has an interest in colour, the research that exists on colour naming is written among the wider audience of the general population. discourse not visual representation. Therefore, this project finds its relationship to design practise by using I also hope to find an audience in those who also design methodologies to visually represent research are studying colour naming, or who have an interest in an area where two fields closely related to graphic in linguistics, semiotics, colour theory, culture, the design coincide. visual arts, perception, philosophy or simply the general advancement of knowledge, learning and understanding. 2.7 VALIDITY

Colour is often seen as a purely decorative medium, and it would be easy to assume that the language we use to describe colours is a somewhat esoteric area of study. However, as the research for this project has come to reinforce, colour is a highly prominent aspect of our environment. We all have a relationship with it, even those with a visual impairment.

The way we use language to break down colour into categories and the names that we use for colours are intrinsically linked to the way we perceive and interpret them. Thus, increasing the awareness and understanding of how we use words to describe colours is particularly valid.

The work by Nathan Moroney, described in further detail in Research Methodology, has also served to reinforce the real-world purpose of this area of study, citing a number of relevant applications for an increased understanding of how we use language to describe colour:

‘Applications of color naming include graphical user interface design, color schemes for data visualization, object segmentation in images, as a property in image database queries, and derivation of color palettes for designers.’ (Moroney, 2003)

“Applications of color naming include graphical user interface design, color schemes for data visualization, object segmentation in images, as a property in image database queries, and derivation of color palettes for designers.”

(Moroney, 2003)

Context “Before we could speak, colour was our language .”

(Haller, 2011) MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Context

The subjects of colour and language are both supported by significant bodies of theory. This section of the report details relevant background research and describes similar projects and studies that have helped the development of this investigation.

3.1 THE PHYSICS OF COLOUR

All the colours that saturate the world around us today, itself as a number of different processes, for example have existed since the beginning of time. Photons, the incandescence, diffraction and scattering, depending tiny particles that make up waves of , were one of on the physical structure and properties of the surface. the elementary particles created during the birth of the Many of the colours we see in the world around us universe. are a result of light reflecting off pigmented surfaces. occur everywhere and can be natural, as in Photons travelling at different wavelengths create the skin and hair, or synthetic as with dyes and paints. frequencies of electromagnetic radiation that make up the . The frequencies range When light hits a pigmented surface, photons of from Gamma waves, the shortest at a fraction of the particular energies interact with the electrons in the size of an atom, to longer radio waves. However, what part of the molecule that is responsible for humans see as visible light is only a tiny portion of it, colour, the , causing them to react. Those our spectrum of colours lies between the wavelengths wavelengths of light are absorbed by the object, others of infrared and ultra- radiation. As Isaac Newton are rejected, reflected back at us and are received by demonstrated in his prism experiment over three the receptors in our eyes. hundred years ago, ‘’ light can be refracted and split in to the colours of the spectrum. Red is seen in The electrons in the chromophore of different wavelengths of between 700 and 635 nanometres (nm), materials will only react to photons travelling at specific between 635-590 nm, between 590 and frequencies. This represents the particular amount of 560 nm, green 560 and 490 nm, blue 490 and 450 nm energy that will excite the electrons, so some molecular and between 450 and 400 nm. arrangements will create structures where certain bands of light waves will be reflected more than others. The colours around us don’t physically exists in objects This explains how some objects absorb low energy themselves, they are in some respects, illusions. frequencies and reflect wavelengths that we see as blue Colour is largely created by electromagnetic energy, and others will absorb higher energy frequencies and light, interacting with electrons. This can manifest appear red to us. 3.2 THE BIOLOGY OF COLOUR PERCEPTION

It is possible that we originally developed our sensitivity absorb red, ones which absorb blue and ones which to different wavelengths of light as far back in our absorb green. We have around 100 million rod cells and evolutionary history as when life existed as single 7 million cone cells in each eye. Detailed scans of living cell amoebas in the ocean. In order to harvest vital human retina have shown that although the proportion energy from the sun whilst protecting themselves from of red, green and blue cones can vary wildly between destructive UV rays the organisms moved to different person to person, sometimes up to 40 times (Goudarzi, depths of water at different times of day. They sunk 2005), the way we see colours is remarkably similar. deeper during full daylight, when the sky was blue and moved to shallower water at dusk when the sun However, there are a significant percentage of men who appeared more yellow. It has been speculated that have a colour vision deficiency, compared to women. this yellow/blue colour system is hardwired into our In North American this proportion is 8% verses 0.5% biological make up. (Wikipedia, 2011). This often occurs because two of our cone cell genes occur on the X chromosome. A number Primates developed an additional red/green colour of colour deficiencies can arise when one of these system forty million years ago, when it became useful to genes mutates. As men only have one X chromosome have this ability for finding food and avoiding danger. there is nothing to override that mutation, as there is This new level of colour distinction enabled primates to in women, who have two. The same process could also flourish and evolved into the colour vision system that create tetrachromacy in women, who would theoretically human have today. have four different types of cone receptors, resulting in exceptional colour distinction. It is thought to affect Newborn babies are not born with colour vision. Over 2-3% women worldwide, although only one case has the first three months of life the receptor cells in their been confirmed. eyes eventually develop, allowing them to see colour. Light is processed by the rods and cones of the retina The human eye is a highly complex organ, light enters by means of a series of chemical reactions which are our eyes through the cornea, then the , which can translated in to electrical impulses, transmitted to expand and contract to let more or less light into the the brain through the optic nerve. The impulses are pupil, then the lens. This reflects the light on to the interpreted by comparing the signals from each of the retina which is made up of a number of cells, including different types of cones, in the primary visual cortex, two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones. The at the back of the brain. So the yellow of a banana is rods enable us to see in low light, facilitating the neither in the fruit itself nor the light reflected off it, but distinction between light and dark. While, the cones are in our heads. Exactly how the brain processes colour responsible allowing us to see fine detail and colour. from the signals it receives is still something that science has yet to fully understand, but it is in some respects an Humans are referred to as trichromats, because our illusion. vision is based on a system of three colour receptors. There are three different types of cone cells ones which MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

3.3 THEORIES OF COLOUR

There are a number of ways to demonstrate this The nature of colour has been contemplated throughout aspect of colour. Many optical illusions play on the history, and much has been discussed and theorised idiosyncrasies of our visual system, as seen in the Mach in both ancient and modern philosophy. This includes Band Effect and simultaneous contrast. discussion by Pythagoras (570-c. 495 BC) on colour harmony, Plato (427 - 347 BC) on colour perception, and Some occur because we see colour in context. Josef Aristotle (384-322 BC) on colour mixing. Albers described colour as ‘the most relative medium in art’ (Albers, 2006 pp.1). This quality of our colour vision, Other theories of colour were later developed, through that the colours that we interpret is greatly influenced by painting by Leonardo da Vinci (Treatise on Painting) and what surrounds them, was demonstrated systematically, scientific methods, by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666. More to great effect in his visual experiments in Interaction of recent philosophical works have included writing on the Colour, see Figures 122 and 123, Appendix A. complex relationship between colour and language, in particular Goethe’s Theory of Colours (1810). While all almost all of us have senses that function to give us a similar experience of the world, there Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Colour (1977) was a response will always be a degree of variation in our sensory to this and used language games to contemplate the perception. So our physiology and the way our brains apparent contradictions in our perception of colour. In interpret colour are but two of the potential sources of contrast to this Hardin’s Colour for Philosophers (1988), subjectivity in our experience of colour. aimed to provide a scientific basis for the philosophy of colour, in order to acknowledge how developments in this area that have greatly improved our understanding of colour. “All that is necessary for any language to exist is an agreement amongst a group of people that one thing will stand for another.”

(Crow, 2003 pp.20)

3.4 COLOUR AND LANGUAGE

The Optical Society of America suggests that the human set of colour names has been used as a foundation for eye “can identify between 7.5 and 10 million distinct a number of the colour and language explorations, colours” (Wershler-Henry, 2001). The average adult has described in the Research Methodology section of this a vocabulary of up to 50 000 words (Gall, 2009) and report. although continuously growing, the estimated number of words in the English language is one to two million In contrast to this is the relativist Sapir-Whorf (Gall, 2009). If every word in the English language was hypothesis. This states that our colour categories used, we still would only be able to give names to influence the way we understand the world and could around one tenth of the colours we can recognize. possibly influence the way we actually perceive colours. There is potential empirical evidence of this concept Colour terms are the words we use to identify colours, through experiments conducted on the Himba, a tribe in other words, their names. They are classified as based in northern Namibia, who have very different adjective and can be categorised in several ways, colour categories to English. Shown on the BBC series beginning with abstract and descriptive terms. Abstract Horizon (Figures 123 and 124), the Himba were able terms refer to colour names that are used only to to differentiate far more easily than designate a colour, for example blue. Descriptive people in Western cultures, as they had different words colour terms usually come from the colour of objects for those colours. However, they had great difficulty in the world around us, and can be used to denote both distinguishing blue from green because they create no a colour and an object, for example or . distinction between the two in their language. Many descriptive colour terms are taken from flowering plants or food items. Some colour terms which are now The ancient Greeks were once thought of being unable abstract originated from a descriptive term, for example to see the colour blue, as they too had no word for it the English colour Pink which was originally the name in their language (Eco, 1985 pp.157). While research used for the wild flower mallow. by Paul Green-Armytage (2010) on the limits of colour coding indicates that if a colour can be named it is In the late 1960s Brett Berlin and Paul Kay conducted easier to identify and recall from memory. a worldwide linguistic and anthropological study into the development of colour terms within the language systems of different cultures. From the results of this study they developed a universalist theory of how colour terms evolve within the development of a language. They used it to categorise language systems based on how many basic colour terms existed within it. English was identified as having the maximum number of basic colour terms: eleven. These are , white, red, yellow, green, blue, , purple, pink, orange and (Berlin & Kay, 1999). Of these terms only orange is not abstract, referring to the citrus fruit. This clearly defined MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

3.5 COLOUR NAMING

There is a scene in Sofia Coppola’s film debut, Lost in Even if all the listeners have hundreds of in front Translation, where Bill Murray’s character, Bob receives of them from which to choose the Coca-Cola red, a package of red toned carpet samples from his wife, they will again select quite different . And no while away filming an advert, accompanied by he note one can be sure that he has found the precise red ‘I like the burgundy one, what do you think?’. To which shade. he responds despairingly, after tipping them out on the floor, ‘which one is burgundy?’. This scenario highlights And even if that round red Coca-Cola sign with the a typical example of the frustrations that can occur when white name in the middle is actually shown so that trying to use language to communicate colour. everyone focuses on the same red, each will receive the same projection on his retina, but no one can be There exists a sizeable body of research specifically on sure whether each has the same perception. colour naming. A significant amount has been carried out by Paul Kay (co-author of the Berlin-Kay hypothesis) When we consider further the associations and with others, since the late 1960s, including the World reactions which are experienced in connection with Colour Survey. There are also currently a number of the color and the name, probably everyone will online colour naming projects particularly experiments diverge again in many different directions. by Nathan Moroney, for Hewlett-Packard, Figure 126, cumulating in The Colour Thesaurus Figures 127 and What does this show? 128, An Online Colour Naming Model by LCC MSc. Digital Colour Imaging student Dimitris Mylonas, Public First, it is hard, if not impossible, to remember distinct Perception of Colour project by Rob and Nick Carter colors. This underscores that important fact that the (Figures 129 and 130) and the Interactive Colour Label visual memory is very poor in comparison with our Explorer by CrowdFlower (Figures 130-133). A number auditory memory. Often the latter is able to repeat a of other online colour naming applications are shown in melody heard only once or twice. the Visual Summary and Supporting Material Volume 5. Second, the nomenclature of color is most In the comments on Colour Recollection and Visual inadequate. Though there are innumerable colors— Memory in his influential text The Interaction of shades and tones—in daily vocabulary, there are only Colour, Josef Albers (2006, pp.3) describes a scenario about 30 names.” particularly relevant this project: Some of these problems can be resolved through the “If one says “Red” (the name of a color) and there are use of colour standards. The imprecision of colour terms 50 people listening, it can be expected that there will was addressed by Albert Munsell creator of the Munsell be 50 reds in their minds. And one can be sure that Colour System, who described colour names as ‘’foolish all these reds will be very different. and misleading” (1905, pp.9) and the Matching System, both of which employ numeric methods Even when a certain color is specified which all to define colours. However, these systems are only listener have seen innumerable times—such as the applicable in certain contexts and are impractical for red of the Coca-Cola sign which is the same red al everyday conversation. over the country—they will still think of many different reds.

Key Concepts Key Concepts

Summarised here are the principal concepts, identified throughout the course of this research that either; inform, support or have developed as a result of the project. They are fundamental to the understanding of the way we perceive colour, the relationship between colour and language and support the validity of the subject as an area of study.

• Colour doesn’t physically exist in objects or in light. • Language is inadequate in its description of colours It is in essence, an illusion. Our eyes absorb the because we are able to optically identify many more different wavelengths of light that are reflected by individual colours than we have words for, even in the objects and surfaces. It is our brains, which then whole of the English language. interpret them as colour. • The names of colour have no chromatic content in • We see colour in context. The colours that we see themselves. This results in a lack of consensus over are influenced by surface, texture and material, the exact hue a particular name refers to. If an author the amount, direction and quality of light, and in writes the word ‘green’ in a text, they will never know particular, other surrounding colours and surfaces. if the reader understood the precise hue that is meant by the term. • Our perception of colour is subjective. Even excluding those with major visual and colour vision • We lack the ability to use language to identify the deficiencies, we still all perceive colour slightly vast range of hues in the world around us precisely differently. It can be influenced by age, gender and, and often resort to pointing to a similar colour or some argue, by how a culture divides colour into improvising using references to the colour of familiar categories using language. objects or brands.

• We are unable to convey our individual perception • Despite there being limits to our language, we still of colour accurately with language because a have several thousand colour terms at our disposal. shared understanding of words is required for Yet we predominantly resort to a small collection communicating meaning, even though the sensory of basic terms to describe a vast range of colour experience may be slightly different. experiences. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

• The way that a culture divides colour into categories • Devising a system that would give us a truly with language is a reflection of how pertinent those accurate way of describing colour using language is distinctions are in that culture. In the future, it is theoretically impossible. possible that in industrialised cultures, where there is a widely coloured visual landscape, it may be • Language, although flawed, is the best system necessary to expand our vocabulary of basic colour we have for describing colour in a conversational terms. context. Numerical colour systems are somewhat impractical and complex for widespread use and • With colour names that are less frequently used or conversation, failing to capture the full extent of our more sophisticated there tends to be a breakdown in sensory experience. the understanding of what hue a term refers to.

• By using language to define and describe colours we attach a variety of connotations and cultural meanings to a hue, so it is incredibly difficult to talk about a colour objectively, as pure chroma, without evoking a multitude of associations.

• There is no effective way of explaining colours or a particular colour to someone who has never seen it or cannot see.

Research Methodology

MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Research Methodology

This section of the report details the research methodologies and used for the various explorations into the relationship between colour and language that form this investigation. They are structured to follow the three approaches identified through the analysis of the research question.

5.1 FOCUS 1

The Names of Colours: Analysis of the body of words descriptive and there are some like ‘pink’ for example used to describe colour, how they can be divided, their that are now considered abstract but derive from a origins, their uses. descriptive source. Of the eleven basic colour terms only ‘orange’ is still considered descriptive. However To create a foundation for the project I felt it necessary researching the epistemology of colour names became to examine the body of words that comprise our colour essential for this process and in some cases it was naming vocabulary. This initially involved compiling a difficult to discern whether the colour name had list of colour names from various publications and online originated from an object or not. sources, which had been identified during the initial research for this project. However, this exercise proved highly valuable formed the basis of a number of further investigations, This exercise then progressed to dividing the colour described over the following pages. names into groups of abstract and descriptive colour terms, for example red and orange, then compound and non-compound terms, for example blue and . The division of colour names into abstract and descriptive terms proved to be more difficult than initially expected. Far more colour names are actually 5.1.1 ESSAYS ON COLOUR

One of the first investigations into the relationship As an extension of this research I was keen to discover between colour and language began with a series of how colour terms were used within the individual essays, essays published in Cabinet Magazine, an American to reflected how the subject had been broached in each quarterly arts and culture journal. Every issue the editors case. Using a number of different methods I analysed asked one of their regular contributor to write about a the distribution of colour terms throughout all of the colour. I first discovered the columns while writing the essays. There was a vast difference in the number of proposal for this project and was able to collect the instances, which was also converted both into a bar essays from all forty-two of Cabinet’s published issues. graph and shown as a ratio of the total word count. The distribution of the colour terms was shown by Initially the essays were another piece of background highlighting all of the colour terms within each essay research providing valuable source of interesting and then layering them to create areas of varying information about colour and colour names. However, density. The exercises were then edited and collated collectively they represented a varied and engaging as a book and poster series: Essays on Colour Analysis body of writing that demonstrated a variety of (Figures 9–16). The full range of iterations is presented in approaches to talking about colour, ranging from the Supporting Material Volume 2. highly factual to the deeply personal. Some focussed very much on the colour in question, others described stories from history or politics.

As the essays had played a significant role in informing my view on colour I collated them in a book called Essays on Colour so that the collection could be appreciated as a whole, and the different approaches to writing about a colour could be compared. Iterations of the book layout are shown in Figures 1–4. Figures 5–8 show spreads of the final design for the book. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

FIGURES 1 – 4, ESSAYS ON COLOUR LAYOUT ITERATIONS

Hazel Frances Richard Jonathan Lethem

h, Hazel, you’re making me crazy and lazy My next Hazel was when I was fourteen or fifteen. with potter’s clay under their fingers, maybe, girls who I’m just a soul who’s bluer than blue can be earth on a more than lyrical level, linked to the them a terrifying appearance in battle.” Pliny the Elder similarly capitalized upon; for a time, indigo rivaled and hazy! Hazel, I think I love you! Hazel, My father is a painter, and I was following in his when they danced spun in whirling skirts, and sex When I get that mood indigo establishment of colonialism and the patterning concurs: “There they have a plant…with which the rice, sugar, and tobacco as the primary cash crop you were the beginning of sex to me, a boy’s footsteps. He had a drawing group, every Thursday outdoors with bugs around and the sun in hazel eyes. Duke Ellington of trade routes. The dye’s subdued allure has been women and daughters in Britain paint their bodies on colonial American and Caribbean plantations.) Olove for an adult woman’s mystery. I’m a little drunk night. I’d go and draw, sitting in the circle of artists, And at night we’d see the owl, I was sure. Instead by seducing beauty-seekers for millennia, and in at certain festivities; they go naked and are similar Interestingly, the growing of indigo—which, unlike on you, when I dim the and let the memories the one kid allowed. From the nude model. A mixed the time I was ready it was an infrared or ultraviolet he are a swath of the emotional/visible exploring techniques by which to reliably create its to the Ethiopians in color.” Ovid reported that early rice, does not require standing water, and therefore flood in... Hazel, you are a gypsy dancer... but let me experience, a rich one. I was sneaking looks for hours world, we danced with knock-kneed Elvis Costello spectrum, and indigo weights its heavy particular dark blueness, industries were founded Teutonic tribes used woad to cover graying hair. does not breed mosquitoes—nearly eradicated both try to explain. at a time, in plain sight. This was the 70s. I demanded jerks, sneering at Hazel, those grubby Deadhead girls end. Pure indigo is a darkness with hints of and international relations influenced. The story of Indigo, meanwhile, circulated in the bazaars malaria and yellow fever, which were decimating My eyes are blue. Blue-gray. My father, a they treat me as an adult, and I was obliged. And in the next dorm, and made out with short-haired reddishT purple, ashen black, burnt green; a saturated, indigo’s cultivation, preparation, and distribution of ancient Egypt, Greece, Byzantium, and Rome; in colonists. When the “Indigo Craze” subsided in the Midwestern Quaker, has blue eyes. My Jewish mother there were two beautiful women, artists, who sat in punks in cocaine fluorescent light. We reinvented inky, night-and-ocean tone. Its affective nature is as a tangible commodity reads as a primer on the China, Japan, pre-Colombian Central and South 1790s, both diseases resurfaced in new and more had eyes that were something other. Brown, I would the circle and drew from the model as well: Laurel body-fear, pale anemic anorexic sex-ambivalence. not unchangeable: Indigo buntings are jaunty little development of luxury-goods markets on a global America; in Java, Ceylon, Persia, and of course, virulent strains. For the next hundred years, indigo have said. My brother ended up with those eyes too. and Hazel. Like the names of two rabbits. Laurel was Hazel might be having all the fun, but she was birds, and Timex watches with Indiglo™ lighted faces scale. This history can be boiled down to two weedy- India—where Marco Polo observed production remained a staple commodity in the international Hazel, my parents both explained. This was important. blonde and Hazel dark, no kidding. I loved them both, shameful now, David Byrne had explained the problem glow a comfy, television blue. When extended with looking plants. Whenever a neutral substrate takes methods thought to have been practiced since 2000 textile trade—the interplay of chromatics and political Look for the green in the brown, the shimmer—that’s mad crushes. Again, an intoxicating mix, the nude perfectly. I pretended I’d never known her, and I white, indigo’s intensity softens like beloved worn-in on the short-wavelength spectral reflectance peculiar B.C. After the 17th century, indigo was rarely used economy achieving a kind of full circle when, having Hazel. I tried, I looked. I pretended to see it, gazing before me, Hazel and Laurel my peers in the circle. The hadn’t—only trusted she’d be there, and detected the jeans—Levi Strauss & Co. was an early bulk consumer to indigo, the active ingredient is a lustrous coppery- by artists, who found that , , lost access to American sources after the Revolutionary into my mother’s eyes, yes, sure, it’s there—Hazel. They model would finish with a pose and you’d go around, patchouli scent of her promise to me, the promise I of vegetable indigo, and contemporary denim is dyed midnight powder known as indican [C16H10N2O2]. and azurite dispersed more easily in oil binders. But War, imposed a plantation system on indigo- looked brown to me. murmuring approval of one another’s drawings, failed to keep. Hazel, I never saw you. with a synthetic version that is as “fugitive” or fade- Indican must be extracted via a complicated prior to that era, agents in the ports of Venice, Genoa, producing villages in India. Finally, in 1897, the I associated this with a game of my mother’s, pointing out flourishes. Steamy, for a boy. Crushes prone as its natural counterpart. But generally, indigo fermentation, aeration, and precipitation process, and and Marseilles traded with Persian middlemen in Asia German firm Badische Anilin Soda Fabrik developed another trick of gaze: She’d put her nose to mine so on your parents’ female friends, when you’re a hippie imbues things equal parts melancholia and serenity. it can be derived from some thirty different kinds Minor and Hormuz, providing the pigment identified a synthetic substitute. Loosed from its physical roots in that our faces were too near to see in focus and say, child, mash mothery feeling with earthy first stirrings What makes the color-as-idea so sensual is the Sturm of vegetation. But the most important of these are in blue passages from The Last Supper and Madonna the dyer’s fields and vats, indigo migrated toward the with bullying enthusiasm, “See the owl! Do you see of lust—you’re not afraid of women’s bodies when und Drang of its lowering visual presence, encapsulated Indigofera tinctoria, the common indigo—named and Child by Leonardo, in Rubens’s Descent from the abstract as a title-writer’s dream, a one-word poem. the owl? It’s an owl, do you see it?” I never could see you’re a hippie child. That’s got to be invented later, by the musical complexity of its name. Ellington for India, the species’ original habitat—and Isatis Cross and Vermeer’s Christ in the House of Mary and the owl. A blur, a cyclops, maybe a moth, but never an retroactively. I took showers outdoors with nudists, knew the elaborate play he’d get by rearticulating a tinctoria, also known as dyer’s woad. Woad is basically Martha, as well as in other artworks of various periods You ain’t been blue; no, no, no. owl. I didn’t know how to look for the owl. But I didn’t it was all good. Hazel was waiting for me, she was in funky, lovelorn blues with the sophisticated, liquid o’s indigo’s poor relation, a European herb of the mustard from Turkey to Tibet. You ain’t been blue, know how to refuse: “Yes, I see the owl!” It was the store. and i’s and d’s of “Mood Indigo,”—in which a lilting family producing a similar tint, but offering roughly The waning of indigo’s use as a fine-art pigment Till you’ve had that mood indigo. same with Hazel. I saw and I didn’t see. I saw the idea: Then the Dylan song, of course, from “Planet “moon” is imbricated as if behind blue-black clouds. thirty times less indican per comparable mass of coincided with an increase in its importance as a —Duke Ellington something green in the brown, a richness, something Waves.” Hazel. “Planet Waves” I’d put with “New Indigo stands for the dyer’s hands indelibly stained to organic material. Both types, despite the involved textile dye. In the early 18th century, European society Jewish and enviable and special, not mere brown eyes. Morning” and “Desire,” the three records of Dylan’s the elbow and the patch of sky adjacent to starlight; processes of their facture, boast ancient pedigrees was swept by a fad for Indian exotica (parallel to The notion of Hazel balanced, in our family, against most saturated with hippie aesthetics, the sexy gypsy the indigenous hues of Japanese printed cottons, in literature. Mentions of woad occur in Sumerian crazes for chinoiserie, or tulips), and in order to satisfy the specialness of blue eyes, it stood for everything stuff, the handkerchief-on-the-head phase. “Hazel” Indonesian batiks, mussel shells, and bruises are all cuneiform, ancient Egyptian papyrus, and Carolingian the accompanying lust for brilliant blue, French and that wasn’t obvious in the sum of advantages or virtues is a ragged, tumbling song of lust, that Rick Danko in the word. Hence, in part, the appeal of the Indigo manuscripts; there is far-flung evidence for its use English entrepreneurs founded hundreds of New between two parents. Hazel was my mother’s beatnik organ sound: “You got something I want plenty of…” Girls, or Joni Mitchell’s almost-redundantly titled in classical and medieval times, from the Russian World indigo plantations. Facilitated by the slave Jewish side, her soulfulness. I granted it—I was in love And from the same record, another lyric: “It was album Turbulent Indigo. In this allusive flexibility, as Caucasus to northern France; from Manchuria trade, dyeworks in the West Indies and the American with it! So Hazel was my first imaginary color, before hotter than a crotch…” My mother loved Dylan, so it well as in its aural cadence, indigo implies the psyche, to western Africa. Vitruvius describes it in De Carolinas were manned by Africans from the regions Infrared, before Ultraviolet, and more sticky and all folded together, the hot murk of Hazel, what I’d subtly indicating “in,” “I,” “ego.” In the midst of its Architectura and Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, of Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Cameroon, who were stirring than either of those: Hazel is to Ultraviolet as never seen but was ready to see, the green in the brown, clouds-and-water tonalities, it appeals to something while in his treatise De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar sometimes seized specifically for their native skills Marijuana is to Cocaine, as Patchouli is to Obsession. Hazel, Dolores Haze-l, oh, I long for you still, you were interior, subconscious, and fundamentally earthy. records that “All Britons paint themselves with woad, in growing and processing indigo. (Knowledge of My mother wore patchouli—it smelled Hazel. the beaded, reeking initiation I never quite had, girls The history of indigo, in fact, intertwines with which grows wild and produces a blue dye. This gives rice cultivation was an African intellectual property

These are the days of disappearing winters, and the world, transforming the act of living into lifestyle. “The blind aura of safety orange of anthrax spores whose origin remains unknown, or Something so intangible as emotion, in turn, assumes has entered everyday living unrevealed. Concrete phenomena float on abstract a kind of property value as it becomes intimately winds, seeming like mere signatures of dynamics maneuvered by, and then associated with, products. Bice space. One pure distillation that supercede immediate perception. The world (One business manual recently went so far as to suggest appears in the logo for Home is a living place of literature, interstitial, eclipsing that “consumers are our products.”) Jonathan Ames objects with the sensibility of information, and The iMac, to take one artifact of the 1990s, Depot, which posits one’s most experience floating on the surface of lexicons. was introduced to the general public in a blue that intimate sphere, the household, Everything is so characterless and abstract as the was more than blue: Bondi Blue, which obtained weather: Wars are engaged without front lines, and the emotional heat accorded to the aquatic tones of as a site that is under perpetual weapons operate according to postindustrial logic, a cosmopolitan beach in Australia, for which the intended to destabilize economies or render large areas color is named. Similarly, the iMac’s clear sheath is construction, re-organization, uninhabitable by the detonation of homemade “dirty neither clear nor white—it is Ice. (Synesthesia reigns and improvement. The home bombs” that annihilate culture but do little damage in capitalism; postindustrial exchange value depends to hard, architectural space. Radical thought is also on the creation of ephemeral worlds and auras within becomes unnatural, industrial, displaced, as the military, not the academy, offers the which to house products. And so, as colors perform singed with toxic energy.” greatest collective of theorists today; all possibilities psychotropic functions, total, if virtual, realities are hen I was a little boy, I liked to pick my something easier? Like yellow?” treasures in the tubing and grooves of that long lamp. carbon in my mucous, all the elements of the world are considered by its think tanks, without skepticism located within single, monochromatic optical fields. nose. In fact, I’ve enjoyed picking my nose I felt tempted to say yes. My eyes are often yellow And no one saw me doing this because I was in the must be in me, in everyone—would mingle with the or humanist pretensions, and all nations are potential Control of bodies, the original role designated for Wfor most of my life. This is not something because of a dysfunctional liver, and I immediately darkness. And the effect of my salty mucous—like sea and make a union, a new thing, alchemically, targets. Ordinary health risks described in the popular safety orange, is set aside for access to minds, which to be proud of, but telling you about my nosepicking thought about how I could write about my liver and air on a statue—was that the copper lamp slowly, in chemically, pigmentally. And that thing was the color press are totally relational, regularly enmeshing adopt the logic of addiction.) In fact, the 1990s boom brings me to the word bice. Perhaps it’s not clear how about the body’s humors. But steeling myself, showing streaky spots, turned greenish-blue. To everyone but bice, a good color, I think, because it has brought microwaves and genetic codes; the fate of ice caps might be usefully read through two specific television this brings me to bice, but I will try to explain. a flinty courage, I said, “No, bice is fine. I have a good me this was a mystery. “Why is this lamp eroding?” my back to me that TV and darkened living room and belongs to carbon. Everything is a synthetic realism. commercials that were geared to hues: It began with The good and clever editors at Cabinet asked me dictionary. I’m on it. You can count on a thousand father would sometimes ponder. childhood and lamp and table and beloved Everything belongs to safety orange. the iMac’s introduction in blue, orange, green and gray to write about a color. I said I would do this. I am a words on bice from me.” On occasion, showing largesse, I would put my dog—all things gone a long time ago. All things that It is a gaseous color: fluid, invisible, capable of models, in a spot that was accompanied by the Rolling writer and writers usually say yes when editors offer We rang off. snotty treasures on the underside of the wooden coffee didn’t last forever. moving out of those legislated topographies that have Stones lyric “She comes in colors.” Later, against the them work. So the idea was that they would choose I opened my dictionary—it’s an OED for the table in front of the couch and our dog Toto, named been traditionally fenced off from nature to provide backdrop of 2001’s dot-com wasteland, Target released the color for me and I was to respond. But they didn’t field, so to speak; it’s about the size of the Bible, as by my older sister after Toto in the Wizard of Oz, significant nuances for daily living. Perhaps it is a an advertisement featuring shoppers moving through give me the color right away, they told me they would opposed to the colossus numerous-volume regular would come and bend his red and brown Welsh Terrier perfume: an optical Chanel No. 5 for the turn of a hyper-saturated, blood-red, vacuum-sealed field of call me back in a few days. Fine, I said, and I looked OED. I found bice, though, out of curiosity, I checked neck and happily and aggressively lick up the snots. I the millennium, imbuing our bodies with its diffuse repeating corporate logos—colors and brands were by forward to this. I saw it as a version of that classic word my American Heritage Dictionary, and there was can still see him in my mind, craning to get under the form. (Chanel was the first abstract perfume, as it then entirely deterritorialized, lifted from objects and association game—the pschia-trist says to you, “Just no bice. Good thing I have my Junior OED. What table. And my parents and relatives would notice this was completely chemical and not based on any flower; displaced onto architecture—to the sound of Devo’s tell me the first thing that comes to your mind after I I encountered in the dictionary was this: “pigments and everyone thought that he must like the taste of appropriately, it arrived on the scene at roughly the post-punk, tongue-in-cheek number “It’s a Beautiful give you a word.” Then he says, for example, “Cereal” made from blue, green, hydrocarbonate of copper; wood. same time as Cubism.) The blind aura of safety orange World.” and you say, “Morning,” and then he says, “Picnic,” similar pigment made from smalt, etc.; dull shades of I was clandestine in my actions, but I didn’t feel has entered everyday living space. One pure distillation Devo often wore jumpsuits of safety orange, and you say, “Apples, no—copulation,” and nobody blue & green given by these.” too much shame about any of this—nose picking was appears in the logo for Home Depot, which posits which was, at the time, the color of nuclear power figures anything out, but the game is fun to play. So I Well, my immediate response to bice was straight too much something I had to do. But as I got older, the one’s most intimate sphere, the household, as a site plants and biohazards—a color created to oppose waited for my color, to which I was going to respond to out of the ethers of my long ago childhood; it was lamp was looking more and more terrible, and there that is under perpetual construction, re-organization, nature, something never to be confused with it. It is with immediate first-thought, first-feeling sensitivity Proustian; it was tactile; it was visual; it was beautiful, was talk of throwing it out. I secretly tried to clean and improvement. The home becomes unnatural, the color of information, bureaucracy, and toxicity. and clarity and enthusiasm. I did find myself, though, sad, and lonely. It was better than blue or red or yellow. it, but the blue-green streaks would not go away. But industrial, singed with toxic energy. Microsoft also Variations of orange have often played this role. cheating and mentally preparing my essay in advance, What I saw in my mind’s eye, my soul’s heart, was I didn’t want this lamp to be forsaken by my family; uses the color for its lettering, conjuring its associative Ancient Chinese bookmakers, for example, printed Safety power to suggest that a scientific future is always here the edges of paper with an orange mineral to save their hoping for blue, about which I could write about my the standing, tube-like copper lamp, which used to things back then, objects, were nearly animate to me, grandfather’s eyes, or red, the color of my hair, my be beside the couch in the living room of the house I dear even, and to lose a thing from the living room, my around us, but may be fruitfully harnessed (Your home books from silverfish. son’s hair, my great-aunt’s hair, my grandmother’s hair, grew up in. And every night, I would sit on this couch special room of TV and darkness, would be terrible. I computer is a nuclear reactor). Times change. In 1981, the Day-Glo connoisseur numerous uncles’ and cousins’ hair, and I envisioned in the darkness, alongside this unlighted lamp, and I wanted everything to stay the same forever; and, too, Such associative leaps are not unique. In Peter Halley suggested that New Wave bands like an essay with the winning title A Family of Red would watch television all by my very young (six, seven, I felt horribly guilty that I was killing this lamp. So postindustrial capitalism, experience is often codified Devo were “rejecting the cloddish substance of Heads, or just Red Heads. eight; this went on for years), lonesome, yet happy self. I pleaded with my parents on its behalf, told them I Orange in color. During the economic surge of the past decade, traditional humanistic values,” comparing their work Then the phone call came. The Cabinet editor I felt a solitary contentment in the darkness watching loved the lamp, and it wasn’t thrown away. With this corporations recognized and implemented on a grand to that of the Minimalists. (All colors are minimal.) said, “Your color is bice.” I was silent, mildly ashamed my programs before dinner, my mother cooking in reprieve, I tried not to wipe my snots on it anymore, scale what newspapers documented only after the Yet the course of Devo has been the course of culture: at a deficient vocabulary, as well as a deficient the kitchen beside the living room, and all the while to only coat the bottom of the coffee table and feed onset of the recession: that colors function like drugs. the band’s rejection of humanistic values has become knowledge of colors. Blue and red were striking me as I absorbed the stories from the TV and soaked up my beautiful dog, but sometimes I would weaken, Tunneled through the optic nerve, they generate more abstract and expansive, and enmeshed in cultural as quite pedestrian now. “Do you need to look it up?” the radiation from that ancient, large contraption and I’d find a new unstreaked spot—I could feel specific biochemical reactions and so determine tissue. Their music moved away from the specialized asked the editor. “Don’t worry if you do. I didn’t know (TVs, like cars, were made uniformly big back then), I them with my fingers—and so I’d make my mark, my moods in psychotropic fashion; they create emotional artistic realm of electro-synth composers like Robert it either. It was my colleague’s idea... Do you want would pick and pick my nose and then wipe my small hydrocarbonated snot—there must be hydrogen and Tim Griffin experiences that lend themselves to projections upon Fripp and Brian Eno (who produced the band’s first FIGURES 5 – 8, ESSAYS ON COLOUR SPREADS OF FINAL DESIGN

ecologists—functions as a protective substance. So Bible—Judges, Samuel, and Kings—record Israel’s when YHWH tells Moses that It wants Its tabernacle rise and fall. Judges portrays a kind of anarchist utopia and Its door to be constructed of saqalat, and that unlike any other nation (i.e., an exploitative monarchy), furthermore It wants the ark in which It lives to be because it could have only one king: YHWH. Early in surrounded by more saqalat (Ex 26:1,36 and 27:16), Samuel, however, the Israelites bring YHWH’s ark into It is obviously sterilizing Its environment. YHWH battle against the Philistines, and it is captured. For goes on to design the vestments of its priests, also twenty years, the ark remains outside its protective of richly dyed cloth, and It forbids anyone “unclean” tabernacle, and diseases follow it everywhere (1 to enter the tabernacle: any priest who has become Sam 5:6). It seems correct to assume that YHWH, unclean through contact with other Hebrews, YHWH unprotected by saqalat, was destroyed at some point insists, must wash himself in . Leviticus, a book during this period. Perhaps this is what Philip K. Dick dedicated entirely to the special duties of YHWH’s was getting at in Our Friends from Frolix 8, in which priests, seems to suggest that scarlet dye was a character announces, “God is dead. They found his also used by the priests to infect others with what carcass in 2019. Floating out in space near Alpha.” hen paranoid types encounter a word as At the risk of being flippant, one might go so far as we might call the YHWH virus. In Leviticus 14, for The Hebrews, meanwhile, minds no longer clouded enduring and pervasive as scarlet (OF, to suggest that this crackpot theory makes sense of example, we read that YHWH instructed the Levites by whatever ego-obliterating substance they’d Wescarlate; It., scarlatto; ON, skarlat; mod. the Old Testament. to use a length of scarlet-dyed cord to sprinkle liquids received via the priests’ scarlet cords, ceased to obey Gr. skarlaton; Serbian, skrlet; etc.), we sit up and take Let’s face it: the Pentateuch, or the first five books onto the open sores of any ailing Hebrews. As we shall YHWH’s injunction that they should have no other notice. of the Hebrew Bible, authored by Moses himself, tells see, the scarlet cord, which functioned something like king. Immediately after we learn of the ark’s capture, A signifier used nowadays to refer to a vivid red a far-out story. Skipping over Genesis, the prequel a syringe, would become an important symbol for the we read that Samuel, the most distinguished of Israel’s color inclining to orange or yellow, scarlet is believed to the main narrative (it’s The Hobbit, if you will, to Hebrews. judges, was approached by a committee of Hebrews to be an alteration of the Persian saqalat (saqirlat, Moses’ Lord of the Rings), we read in Exodus that There is a great deal more of this kind of thing who demanded, “Now appoint a king to lead us, such in modern Arabic), meaning a high-quality cloth, the author, an adopted Egyptian prince who came in Leviticus and also in Numbers, an account of as all the other nations have.” Samuel anointed Saul, “But what if we’ve got it backwards? usually dyed red. Not just any red, though! In non- to sympathize with the multiracial community of the Hebrews’ nomadic existence in the Middle who proceeded to do what kings everywhere have industrial societies, flame-red scarlet symbolizes slaves known as Hebrews, encountered an entity “in East following their initial organization at Sinai. But always done: he built a standing army, invaded other What if scarlet caused us to fertility and vitality. Color therapists consider scarlet a flames of fire from within a bush”: If God has a color, in Numbers, YHWH finally reveals his plan to the countries, and exploited the populace. By the end of vasoconstrictor, arterial stimulant, and renal energizer: that is, it’s flame-red, or scarlet. This unnameable Hebrews: they are to invade Canaan. Why? Because 1st and 2nd Kings, we cannot help but agree with the become passionately fixated SCARLET they employ it to raise blood pressure, stimulate phenomenon (YHWH means “I am who I am”) seems Canaan, later called Phoenicia, was a land where the Hebrew prophets. Alas, Israel became a nation like all erections, increase menstruation, and promote to possess and inflame Moses: when Moses comes dyeing industry was of central importance to the the other nations. on transcending ourselves, via libido. And in our popular culture, it’s associated with down from Mount Sinai after spending 40 days economy (both names in fact mean “land of purple”); So what role does scarlet play in our lives today? fallen women (The Scarlet Letter) and those women with YHWH, “he was not aware that his face was and YHWH must have desired to corner the market. We Americans have always enjoyed portraying merging with others in the act of sex, Having possessed the minds and bodies of the ourselves as a new Israel, but these days it’s only JOSHUA GLENN whom we’d like to see fall (Scarlett O’Hara, Scarlett radiant”(Ex 34:29), and forever after, one reads, he or by killing and being killed? What Johansson, Miss Scarlet from the boardgame “Clue”). wears a veil when he’s out in public (Ex 34:33–34). Hebrews via his priests’ scarlet cords, YHWH organizes too apparent that we’re the empire-building Israel It is an intoxicating, maddening hue. What does YHWH want? To shape the Hebrews into them into a military camp and they march from Sinai about which Isaiah lamented. Not only that, we’re a if scarlet was a drug” But if scarlet is reminiscent of sex, it’s also a nation unlike other nations, one with no king but as Its conquering army. The only problem is that the nation of sex and death addicts, ricocheting from one reminiscent of death. Since the days of Genghis Khan, YHWH; to reveal Its laws to the Hebrews; and, oddly Hebrews keep defying YHWH: after thirty-nine years, extreme to another—anorexia/obesity, Puritanism/ poets have marveled at how poppies as scarlet as enough, to instruct the Hebrews in exacting detail on they still haven’t invaded Canaan, and the old guard pornography, sloth/war. Why? Call it an attempt to blood tend to spring up in war-torn meadows; that’s how to erect a tabernacle where It will dwell. of tabernacle insiders is dying off. In Deuteronomy, recapture the annihilating highs and lows experienced why veterans wear poppies on Memorial Day. And Does this take-me-to-your-leader business put the final book of the Pentateuch, Moses makes a last- thousands of years ago by the Hebrews. Like them, recent archaeological discoveries in the Middle East anyone in mind of JHVH-1 (JEHOVAH), the evil, ditch series of speeches urging the Hebrews to remain we’re only happy when we’re drinking the scarlet suggest that scarlet has symbolized death for nearly godlike space creature dreamed up by the parodic faithful to YHWH, and then dies himself. Kool-Aid. as long as humans have engaged in symbolic thinking: Church of the SubGenius? No surprise there, because This might have been the end of the history of lumps of ocher found near the 90,000-year-old graves in several important respects YHWH does resemble an YHWH on Earth, were it not for the efforts of Joshua, in the Qafzeh Cave in Israel, scholars have claimed, extraterrestrial. Like the radioactive alien in the movie a Hebrew strongman who got his start standing guard were carefully heated in hearths to yield a scarlet hue, Repo Man, YHWH can’t be directly viewed by the outside the first, temporary tent that Moses set up for then used in ritual activities related to burying the Hebrews. It’s kept under lock and key in a protective YHWH. Joshua leads the Hebrews across the Jordan dead. containment sphere of sorts: the tabernacle. Though into Canaan, occupies the kingdoms of Og and Sihon, Thus in the history of symbolic thought, scarlet has the Hebrews have fled into the wilderness with and sends spies into the fortified kingdom of Jericho. meant both Eros and Thanatos, Sex and Death, the only a few possessions, throughout Exodus YHWH At this transitional moment in the Book of Joshua (and conflicting drives that—according to Freud—govern demands from them rare and specific materials for the history of mankind), sex and death play a crucial every aspect of human activity. But what if we’ve got his dwelling place. First and foremost, It orders them role. Rahab, a prostitute, shelters Joshua’s spies and it backwards? What if scarlet caused us to become to bring offerings of “blue, purple, and scarlet” (Ex delivers to them the intel that the Canaanites are passionately fixated on transcending ourselves, via 25:4), meaning dyes derived (in the case of blue and terrified of the Hebrews and YHWH. The spies then merging with others in the act of sex, or by killing purple) from shellfish that swarm in the waters of the inform Rahab that when the Hebrews take Jericho, she and being killed? What if scarlet was a drug—like northeast Mediterranean, and (in the case of scarlet) can spare the lives of her family by hanging something rhoeadine, the sedative in scarlet poppies used by from Dactylopius coccus, the cochineal bug, as well as out of her window. Remember what it was? That’s the god Morpheus, and the Wicked Witch of Oz—first from the various caterpillars and larvae that feed on right: a scarlet cord. distilled in the ancient Middle East? What if saqalat cochineals. Joshua and the Hebrews conquered Jericho and was not merely a luxury item but an intoxicant that Now, the scarlet pigment harvested from went on to seize control of all the hill country and once possessed entire peoples and changed the cochineals and their predators is a compound the Negev, thus gaining control of the area’s dye course of history? called carminic acid, which—according to chemical industries. The next three major books of the Hebrew

ontusions and confusions. Half-mourning and One does not necessarily think of a color as a men themselves, though that would seem to strain the quite admirably.” Nature imitates art, and artists can’t melancholia. Twilight and adolescence, home commodity. Colors, the ancients reasoned, are tenet.) “Man rule: We have no idea what mauve is,” paint nature mauve without mauve paint. In 1856, the Cdecorators and homosexuals. Drag queen qualities of objects, or our eyes’ subjective response woofs one blogger. world changed color. hair, cheap swag, braggadocio. Oscar Wilde and to those objects, not entities in themselves. They What is mauve? That pale violet that makes certain As colors go, that is a very recent birthdate, which Aubrey Beardsley (that “monstrous orchid,” said tinge and dapple and pass on. Nonetheless, some flowers seem to fluoresce at dusk, or the sullen, sullied makes mauve, precisely, dated. The color of now Wilde). Orchids, especially Cattleya labiata. All things ancients paid high prices for one color: purple. So of Victorian lampshades and mourning dresses? became the color of then. But mauve came back in orchidaceous, including the word “orchidaceous.” “Tyrian purple” is the name Perkin gives his new A cooler , a gooier violet? Mauve, the color of the nineteen-eighties, and the eighties came back, are Prose just shy of purple. According to Nabokov, time hue, referencing the dye eked out of the glandular ish, is defined most clearly by hedging negatives: not coming back, will come back any day now (time, like itself. secretions of tiny, spiny sea snails in ancient Tyre quite pink, not quite purple. It’s less a hue in its own mauve, is an alloy, not an element). Mauve is the past; “Women and homosexuals wear A young chemist tinkering with coal tar, hoping to to color the imperial robes of Rome. But real Tyrian right than a diminution or intensification of some other the future is mauve. find a way to synthesize quinine to treat the malaria purple was the near-black of dried blood. What’s hue; it has about it, simultaneously, an air of petulant the color, use the word. Code felling British soldiers stationed in India, discovers, more, Perkin’s color is cheap, but that’s mauve for retreat and overweening assertion. “Pink trying to be instead, a color. Mauve, the color of disappointment. you, the color of ostentation. The name doesn’t take. purple,” sniffs Whistler. Or the visited link, its vitality for gay until lavender took over, MAUVE But, “strangely beautiful,” thinks the chemist, and Instead, mauve gets its name from a French flower, the depleted. Mauve is a “feminine” color, but not a dips some silk in it, finds the color takes. He sends a one the English call mallow. (Though Nabokov, licking yielding one. It is adult, imperious. But its strength mauve is the gender expression sample to a Scottish dyer, who sees possibilities. The his lips, would liken the color to an orchid’s instead: is ambivalent. Though pugnacious, it is not candid. shibboleth—the example most color lasts like no natural purple. And the ladies seem Cattleya labiata.) Like Victorian fashions, it stresses femininity while SHELLEY JACKSON to like it. Say mauve. It takes longer than most English repressing the frankly female. often given of things real men Mauve, the color of opportunity. words of its length. Long enough to lose heart This ambivalence is characteristic. Mauve is the It is 1856. Madame Bovary, who would have looked part-way through. We’re not quite sure how to color of suspended choice and uncertain boundaries. don’t say.” luscious in mauve, is about to poison herself in the pronounce its soft center: aw or oh. Mauve collapses One of the few colors permitted to women in half- pages of the Revue de Paris. A year later, Empress in the mouth like a chocolate truffle. Like a truffle, mourning, the period of transition between black Eugénie will fall for the new hue—matches her eyes, it tastes expensive, decadent, imported. The word crêpe and the full spectrum, mauve signals the she says. In 1858, Queen Victoria wears it to her is to American English as the color is to American transition from despair to reconciliation. A transition daughter’s wedding and gives it her royal imprimatur. clothes. It enters one’s vocabulary late if at all, an that recapitulates the dye’s own emergence from a Cooked up in a laboratory by a scientist who adult word, with a tinge of the boudoir, and so it beaker of black gunk. The association with death is thought, like that other earnest young scientist Dr. signals sophistication and a possibly unhealthy not just metaphorical. Only a few years after Perkin’s Frankenstein, that he was beating back death, mauve attention to aesthetics. It’s a little too knowing (shades discovery, suspicions arose that mauve, and the other is the first artificial color. And like Frankenstein’s of swimsuits to tempt Lolita: “Dream pink, frosted new dyes it led to, could raise real rashes, that the creation, mauve is vital but unnatural, a little , glans mauve”). It’s a little too French. Mauve efflux of factories could poison villages. And Pynchon monstrous. Even pestilential: “The Mauve Measles,” signifies over-refinement, the exhaustion of potency traces an arc in Gravity’s Rainbow from mauve to the quipped Punch, are “spreading to so serious an extent in the making of ever-finer discriminations; that’s why dye industry, from the dye industry to IG Farben, from that it is high time to consider by what means [they] “Code Mauve” is the stuff of stand-up. A prose writer IG Farben to Zyklon B. may be checked.” Everyone is wearing it. And since knows she’s getting fancy—purple—when she uses “Consider coal and steel. There is a place where skirts are enormous, and worn with crinolines, not to mauve, as she isn’t, paradoxically, when using purple. they meet,” Pynchon writes: “the coal-tars. A mention the unmentionables, mauve unfolds by the Mauve prose: the phrase gets a wink, unlike the thousand different molecules waited in the preterite yard (or the meter) out of dye-works across Europe. prosaic purple, though it’s not always clear whether dung. This is the sign of revealing. Of unfolding. This It is followed in quick succession by other synthetic mauve avoids purple’s excesses, or fails to rise to its is one meaning of mauve, the first new color on Earth, colors, also derived from coal tar: aniline yellow, imperial pomp. But either way, mauve is fey, rococo, leaping to Earth’s light from its grave miles and aeons aldehyde green, bleu de Paris. An entire industry mandarin (all decidedly purplish words). It comes below.” But was it a new color? Surely mauve, the hue, foams up out of furbelows, demonstrating the power across as calculated, even factitious. Decorative already existed in nature—in the orchid, the mallow, of both science and the female consumer. As Simon rather than forceful, it’s a crepe veil or piece of jet the mauve. The glans, even. Except that, as Oscar Garfield points out in his book Mauve (to which this pinned on a sentence, not its muscle. Women and Wilde writes, it is not Nature but Art—in the persons essay is heavily indebted), by launching industrial homosexuals wear the color, use the word. Code for of Monet and Pissarro—that creates the “white chemistry, mauve will change the fate, not just of gay until lavender took over, mauve is the gender quivering sunlight that one sees now in France, with fashion, but of science, medicine, art, and war. It will expression shibboleth—the example most often given its strange blotches of mauve, and its restless violet also make the chemist, William Perkin, a very rich man. of things real men don’t say. (Given by, frequently, shadows ... and, on the whole, Nature reproduces it MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

FIGURES 9 – 12, ESSAYS ON COLOUR ANALYSIS BOOK

FURTHER ANALYSIS TEXT BLOCKS ORDERED BY AREA FURTHER ANALYSIS TEXT BLOCKS ORDERED CHRONOLOGICALLY FURTHER ANALYSIS COLOUR TERM DISTRIBUTION FURTHER ANALYSIS COLOUR TERM DISTRIBUTION AS BLOCKS

6 MagentaAmberBeigeOrangeCyanSilverWhiteHazel Verdigrisgraypinkash opaldrab porphyrypistachioSulphur Ash ChartreuseHazelbrown silvervioletscarlet Hazel SulphurpistachioVerdigris Opal graypuce bicepistachio indigopucepink Hazel biceViolet sulphurgray goldscarlet ivory white PuceashivoryWhite opalVioletPuce Violetgold ivory orange Prussianash BlueivorygraySilver Sulphur ivoryopal purplebeigekhaki orange sulphur Ashscarlet Ivory Rubypuce cyangrayscarlet Mauve Gray HazelAmber ChartreuseWhite tawny amber puceblackamberpink opal amber purpleblackambermaroon Hazel black sepia Black Scarlet pinkpurpleChartreuse HazelVerdigris redblackVerdigrispurpleScarlet redPink beige opalporphyryScarletindigopuce cyan Gray indigogray gray puce Black beigeCyanblack Olivescarletgoldblack white whiteashblacksulphur yellow Indigoblackrubypink whitemaroonwhite Purple Ambercyankhaki Maroon scarletcyan safetyCyan orange. indigo Mauvemaroon gray opal amber pink purple indigosepia RedyellowMagentascarlet black ivory White orangeHazelamberopalPuce indigo cyanamberOrange ambertawny mauveamber Ash Yellow gray IvoryAsh scarlet maroon Hazel whiteVerdigrismagenta red goldwhite amberwhiteorangebeigeWhite bice opalgray khaki safety orange whiteHazelorange whitepurple Indigorust whitepink olivewhiteKhaki porphyryivory magentaHazelWhitescarletcyanIndigo Chartreusesepia pistachioGraykhaki red ultramarinemauveyellowHazelorange ambermagenta mauve opal scarlet Hazelgold Mauvegray yellowIndigoruby tawny Indigo scarlet WhiteGray Hazelmagentaporphyry scarletindigomaroonpinkbice amber sepiagray rust Magentamaroon Khaki maroonbice mauvegrayPink puceivorySepia oliveash indigotawnyamberRubybeige VerdigrisKhaki chartreuse amberoliveblack ivory gray pink Maroonyellowpucepistachioolivesepia orangecyan silverkhakiamber pink sepia MauveRust maroon Hazel rust pucerust beigeRust mauve MagentabiceHazel indigo White tawnyyellowWhiteorange ivorypistachio bice sulphur HazelSulphur tawnyruby chartreuse verdigris drabtawny beige beigegray purplegold Sepia khakiruby redkhakiindigo yellow white ash gold ultramarineopal White White khakiWhite bice sulphuramberBlack scarletash ivoryHazel sulphur ash gray Sepiaamber indigoverdigrispink cyanOliveblack Hazel Sulphurolive indigo pink tawny mauveblack Olive amberrust yellow Hazelmauvegoldsafetypink orange ruby brown Black gold brown Whitebeige Whitebeige beigeWhiteamber WhiteBlack Whitetawny WhiteHazel amberWhite Whiteblack Whiteash purpleWhite Hazel tawnyrust White Whitekhaki mauve Whitepinkopal red White gold White silver tawny grayMauve gray hazelamber Golddrab red khaki olive Hazel ivory White khaki pistachiosafetyporphyry orange beige amber ivory pistachio ivory gold Hazel Puce yellow mauve UltramarinepistachioIndigoWhite Mauvesulphur verdigrisWhite yellowWhitemaroon White Whiteivory amberWhite whiteBrownscarletyellowverdigriswhitered pistachioWhiteMauve Hazel mauve maroongoldmagentascarlet brown Mauve amberporphyry indigoChartreuse pistachio olive yellowmauveultramarine verdigrisscarlet red graybeigeambermauvebrown maroonred tawny porphyrysulphur Ash ashultramarineash verdigris brown amber WhiteBrownGold ivory drabbrown orange amberolive orange sepia ash mauveBrown red ivory opal whitegold white whiteBlack ash drab beigewhiteamberpink orangeporphyrywhite whitebrown yellowblack mauve ivorySepia mauveindigo black scarlet Gold sepia ivory white scarlet whitegrayPurpleivorywhite Mauve white white beige white white white khaki white white silverbrown brownpink scarlet indigo Yellowivorypurple Yellow Yellowporphyrygold BrownamberSepia Yellowscarletbeige pinkorange silver yellow Mauve pistachio Ambergrayoliveverdigris pink PrussianWhite bluesulphur sulphurporphyryindigo beige olive sulphur khaki sulphur orangebrownPistachio Pink indigo Prussian bluesulphur ivory porphyry rust grayyellow bice Mauve amber indigo porphyryivory yellow khaki Yellow beige Yellow mauvePistachioamberverdigrisBeige rustpinkyellowIndigo white red White gray Prussianscarlet blue Brown amberpuceChartreuse. indigoRustyellow Porphyry pucegold mauve yelloworange beige gray Amber ivory CyanSepiaWhiteRed orange verdigrissafetymauve orangePink indigo pink goldPucePrussianbeigePorphyry Blue Pink Ivory amberindigo sepiabrownmagentaCyan Cyan orange beigesilver maroon olivegray white whitepink Cyanwhite Chartreuserustivory Prussianmaroon Bluemauveyelloworange Magenta pistachioorange pistachio redivorysilver olive silverPorphyrymauveWhite sulphurPink amber pistachio sulphur Sulphur Magenta pistachioIvory sulphur orangemauve Cyanorange pistachio red Magentabrown chartreuse green drab greenmauvescarlet rustmauvegreen white white white indigo graySulphur PinkPrussianwhite Blue sepia pistachiomaroon white pink pistachioChartreuse Cyan mauve white mauve brown gray ivorycyan orange magentaPistachiomauve Mauve mauve Ivorybrown orange sepia Whitepistachio pistachio sepia pink pucechartreuse silvercyan Prussian Blue gray cyan magentawhite white Sepia pink Prussian Blue ivorycyan silver chartreusecyan gray scarlet puce cyan white puce Cyan pink White cyan White sepiaPink pink Whitecyan pink White drab Cyan green White ivory ultramarine pink pink Porphyrymaroon sulphurorangeCyan scarlet red sepiaivory ivory White CyanWhite pink Red pink white pinkultramarine scarlet white Sulphur maroon puce White orange sulphur ultramarinepuce puce orange maroon white white white White orange sulphur

ultramarine White ultramarine orange cyan ultramarine White white orange white white whiteporphyry white sulphurorange orange cyan white Sulphur orange cyan orange orange Cyan cyan cyan cyan green

green white ultramarine

white

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White white ultramarine white white white White white

White White white white white white white White White White white

White white white White White white green White

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FURTHER ANALYSIS COLOUR TERM FREQUENCY FURTHER ANALYSIS COLOUR TERM FREQUENCY AS A GRAPH FURTHER ANALYSIS RATIO OF COLOUR TERMS TO WORD COUNT

bice beige ash ruby indigo hazel safety orange rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet violet brown olive white mauve opal maroon prussian blue puce porphyry magenta verdigris black green red amber gold orange drab bice beige ash ruby indigo hazel safety orange rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet violet brown olive white mauve opal maroon prussian blue puce porphyry magenta verdigris black green red amber gold orange drab bice beige ash ruby indigo hazel safety orange rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet violet brown olive white mauve opal maroon prussian blue puce porphyry magenta verdigris black green red amber gold orange drab bice beige ash ruby indigo hazel safety orange rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet violet brown olive white mauve opal maroon prussian blue puce porphyry magenta verdigris black green red amber gold orange drab bice beige ash ruby indigo hazel safety orange rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet brown olive white mauve opal maroon prussian blue puce porphyry magenta verdigris black green red amber gold orange drab bice beige ash ruby indigo hazel rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet brown olive white mauve opal maroon prussian blue puce porphyry magenta verdigris black green red amber gold orange drab bice beige ash ruby indigo hazel rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet brown olive white mauve opal maroon prussian blue puce porphyry magenta verdigris black red amber gold orange drab bice beige ash ruby indigo hazel rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet brown olive white mauve opal maroon prussian blue puce porphyry magenta verdigris black red amber gold orange bice beige ash indigo hazel rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet brown olive white mauve opal maroon prussian blue puce porphyry magenta verdigris black red amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet brown olive white mauve opal maroon puce porphyry magenta verdigris black red amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia purple pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet brown olive white mauve opal maroon puce porphyry magenta verdigris black red amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet brown olive white mauve opal maroon puce porphyry magenta verdigris black red amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia pistachio gray ivory silver cyan yellow tawny scarlet brown olive white mauve opal maroon puce porphyry magenta verdigris black red amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel rust sulphur ultramarine pink chartreuse khaki sepia pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet brown olive white mauve maroon puce porphyry magenta verdigris black red amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel sulphur pink chartreuse khaki sepia pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet brown olive white mauve maroon puce porphyry magenta verdigris black red amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel sulphur pink khaki sepia pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet brown olive white mauve maroon puce porphyry black red amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel sulphur pink khaki sepia pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet brown white mauve maroon puce porphyry black red amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel sulphur pink khaki sepia pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet brown white mauve maroon puce black red amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel sulphur pink sepia pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet brown white mauve maroon puce black amber gold orange beige ash indigo hazel sulphur pink sepia pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet brown white mauve maroon puce black amber gold orange beige indigo hazel sulphur pink sepia pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet white mauve puce black amber orange beige indigo hazel sulphur pink sepia pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet white mauve puce amber orange beige indigo hazel sulphur pink pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet white mauve amber orange indigo hazel sulphur pink pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet white mauve amber orange indigo hazel sulphur pink pistachio gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet white mauve amber orange indigo hazel sulphur pink gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet white mauve amber orange indigo sulphur pink gray ivory cyan yellow scarlet white mauve amber orange indigo sulphur pink gray ivory cyan yellow white mauve amber orange indigo sulphur pink gray ivory cyan white mauve amber orange sulphur pink gray cyan white mauve amber orange pink cyan white mauve amber orange pink cyan white mauve amber orange pink cyan white mauve amber orange pink cyan white mauve amber orange pink cyan white mauve amber orange pink cyan white mauve amber pink cyan white mauve amber pink white mauve amber pink white mauve amber pink white mauve amber white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white FIGURES 13 – 16, ESSAYS ON COLOUR ANALYSIS POSTERS

For every issue the editors of Cabinet Magazine, an American quarterly arts For every issue the editors of Cabinet Magazine, an American quarterly arts and culture journal, ask one of their regular contributors to write about a and culture journal, ask one of their regular contributors to write about a specific colour. The essays are printed as Cabinet’s regular Colours column. specific colour. The essays are printed as Cabinet’s regular Colours column. This poster illustrates the relative length of each of the forty-two articles in their This poster illustrates the relative length of each of the forty-two articles in Essays on Colour Analysis designated colour, from the shortest to the longest. Essays on Colour Analysis chronological order and designated colour. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

6 BeigeOrangeAmberSilverMagentaCyanWhiteHazel Verdigrispinkgrayash opaldrab porphyrypistachioSulphur Ash ChartreuseHazelbrown silvervioletscarlet Hazel tawny SulphurpistachioVerdigris Silver Opal graypucepistachiobice pink puceindigoHazel biceViolet graysulphurgold ivoryscarlet white ivoryashPuce Whiteopal VioletPucegold ivoryViolet orange amber PrussianashcyanivoryBluegray AmberSilverivorySulphur opalkhakipurple amberbeigeorange amberAshsulphurscarletamber Ivory amber puce grayRuby scarletcyan Mauve Gray Hazel tawnyChartreuseWhite puceopalblack pinkpurple maroonblack Hazel sepiablack Black Scarletpurple pink ChartreuseHazelpurple ScarletVerdigrisOlivegoldblackredporphyryVerdigrisPink red beigeScarlet opalpuceindigocyanGray gray gray indigoAmber pucekhaki Black Cyan beigeblack blackMauvescarletwhiteblackwhite ash ambersulphurPurpleyellowIndigoblackpink ruby white whitemaroon khaki cyan Marooncyan scarlet safetyCyan orange. indigo maroonamber grayamberpurplerustopalamber amber pinkmauve Magentaindigo sepia yellowRed scarlet black ivory orange WhiteHazelamberPuceOrangemagentagoldindigo opal cyan tawnyAsh Yellow gray Ash Ivory scarlet maroon Hazel pink olive whiteVerdigris redmagentawhitekhaki whiteorangebeigescarletWhite gray bice opal safety orangepurple Hazel mauvewhiteIndigoorangeamber white rustmagentawhite white mauveKhakiHazelporphyryIndigoivoryscarlet sepiaWhite cyan ChartreusepistachioGray goldMauve khaki Hazelred ultramarineyellow orange scarlet amber magentascarletopal Hazel pink Indigo gray yellow Magentarubyblack mauve Indigo tawnyPink indigo porphyryolive WhiteGray Hazelash amberbicesepiamaroon gray olive rust Khakimaroonamber bice maroon gray Chartreuse pink olivepuceivory tawnySepia indigobeigeRubyKhakiambersilverpink Verdigris Mauve chartreuse ivory gray rubymauve Magenta pistachio puce orangeMaroonyellowkhakisepia cyan goldsepia Rust maroonHazel rustpuce rust Rust beige Hazelbice indigo tawnyWhiteOlivepurple yellowivoryWhiteorange Blackpistachiogold bice sulphurHazel Sulphur ruby tawny chartreuseash gold verdigris tawnydrab gray beigeamberSepiabeige blackkhaki khaki ashscarletruby redindigo yellow ash white opal amberkhakiultramarine blackWhite White White pink Olive bice sulphur olive Hazel ivoryBlack sulphur pink mauveSepiaambergray Olive indigorust verdigrisgold cyanmauve Black pink Hazel Sulphur indigoblack tawny goldpurple mauve yellowsafetypink orangeamberHazel ruby amberbrown silver ash rust Mauve brown Whitebeige Whitebeige beigeWhite White tawnyWhiteHazelgold White White White White HazelWhitekhakiolive tawny White amberWhite White Goldopal red White White tawny gray mauvehazel gray Mauve drab amberkhaki red Mauve gold khakiHazel yellow ivory Whitemauve porphyrypistachiosafetyyellow orange beige Mauveamber scarlet yellowivory pistachio ivoryHazel olive mauve Puce pistachio verdigris UltramarineIndigoWhite scarletsulphurgoldmauveWhite maroonWhitemagentaWhiteamber ivoryverdigrisWhite BrownWhite white whiteredpistachio White yellow Hazel scarlet maroon amberolive Ash ashbrownashporphyry pistachioindigoChartreusemauve ultramarine amber Goldverdigris red maroongraybrownbeigeBlack amberporphyryred tawny pinkash sulphur ultramarine mauve verdigris black brown Brown mauveWhiteash goldivory blackbrown drab orange sepia amber yellowporphyryorange Brown red Purple Mauve Sepiaivory opalindigo white scarlet white white drab Gold beige silversepiaorangewhite brownwhite white pink scarlet purple ivory pink silver brown YellowscarletMauve Yellowbrown ivory oliveindigowhite gray white pinkivorywhite white white porphyryamberYellowBrownwhitegoldscarletSepiabeigewhiteolivekhakiwhite Yellow white white yellowPink Amber ivory porphyryindigo Mauve orangebeige pinkbrown indigo pistachiogray verdigris porphyry rustPrussianyellow blue Whitesulphurambermauvekhakisulphur beige indigosulphur porphyry sulphur orangePistachio yellow Prussian blue ivorysulphur Yellow Yellowbicegray amber Pink rustIndigoyellow mauve ivory pink khaki Brown grayamber scarletPrussian blueindigo beigePink Rustyellow mauvePistachioverdigrisPorphyry Beige gold white Whitered Amber yellowsilver gray pink puce. Chartreuse Sepia indigo puce orange beigePrussianolivegold ivory BluesilverPorphyry indigo verdigris orangeCyanRedsilverWhite mauvesafety orange Pink ambersepiamagenta brown Puce gray beigeolive rust mauve Prussianyellow Blue MagentaIvory Cyan Cyanorange beige maroon white whiteCyan whiteChartreuse ivory orangemaroonPorphyrymauve amberbrown orange pistachioPink pistachio red ivoryMagenta mauve mauve pink White sulphur Magenta pistachioPrussian Blue green sulphur Sulphur rust drab scarletgreen greenpistachioIvory sulphurCyan orangeindigopistachioorange redgraymauvesepia chartreuse mauve brown white white white pink mauve Sulphur Mauvewhite brownmauvesilverpistachio maroon white pistachio Chartreusegray Cyan magentaPistachio white Prussian Blue pink sepia ivorypistachio orange cyan pistachio sepia silver Ivory orange gray White magentaPrussian Blue pucechartreuse pinkcyan Sepia cyan Pink pink white white pink gray scarlet cyan ivory cyan pinkchartreuse pink puce cyan sepiawhite puce Cyan drab green cyan White pinkWhite cyan White White Cyan pinkPorphyry White ivory scarlet ultramarine pink sepia orange maroon Cyan sulphur red ivory ivory Cyan White White scarlet Red white ultramarine whiteSulphur maroon orange puce White sulphur puce ultramarine orange orange puce maroon white white white White sulphur orange porphyry ultramarine White ultramarineorange cyan ultramarineorange orange White white white white white sulphurwhite cyan orange white Sulphur cyan orange orange Cyan green cyan cyan cyan green

white ultramarine

white

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White white ultramarine white white white White white

White White white white white white white White White White white

White white white WhitegreenWhite white

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White White white white

For every issue the editors of Cabinet Magazine, an American quarterly arts and culture journal, ask one of their For every issue the editors of Cabinet Magazine, an American quarterly arts and culture journal, ask one of their regular regular contributors to write about a specific colour. The essays are printed as Cabinet’s regular Colours column. contributors to write about a specific colour. The essays are printed as Cabinet’s regular Colours column. This poster This poster illustrates every occurrence of each designated colour term, in the sequence it appears in the text, Essays on Colour Analysis illustrates all of the occurrences of each designated colour term, following the sequence within the text, for every column. Essays on Colour Analysis represented as a block of that particular colour. 5.1.2 STROOPING THE COLOUR

As a separate method of examining both the The final group of word were not colour terms and relationship between colour and language and our comprised of basic nouns, unrelated to any of the understanding of colour naming I also researched a colours that they were depicted in. Following the logic phenomenon known as the Stroop Effect. The Stroop of the Stroop Effect this group of terms should not Effect is an effect virtually unique to the way our brains produce any evidence of the phenomenon. process the relationship between colour and language. It was first published in England in 1935 by John Ridley In addition to the different types of terms the eleven Stroop and has since been replicated hundreds of times basic colour terms were also presented in two in controlled conditions. It is one of the most recognised alternative ways: in white with a coloured surround occurrences in experimental psychology and refers to and reversed out of a page of full bleed colour. In both a delaying in naming the colour a word is printed in, instances the colour surrounding the word did not when the word refers to a different colour. So it is easier correspond to its meaning. This was to demonstrate the to name the colour of a word printed in red, if the word potential occurrence of the Reverse Stroop Effect, when itself also says red. the colour is easier to name than the word. Spreads from the book can be seen in Figures 17–20. I created different groupings of words in order to examine this and the reverse Stroop Effect, where In other circumstances it may have been possible to colours are easier to name if presented differently. The test the strength of the Stroop Effect in relation to the first group of words were essentially a control group, different categories of words in an experimental setting where the eleven basic colour terms were presented in with groups of participants. However that would have colours that were easily identified as matching the name. required precision timing equipment and controlled, They were then shown in colours that were very different laboratory conditions in order to measure the Effect, to the meaning of the word, so the term ‘white’ was both of which were beyond the constraints of the shown in the colour brown. The second group of words project and the scope of the research question. presented colour terms that were well known but less commonly used, in colours that were less easy to name. As an extension of the words presented in the book, a This was to determine if changing the complexity of the number of poster iterations were produced (shown in colours and colour terms influenced the Stroop Effect. Figures 21–24). Exchanging the colours of terms from the additive and subtractive colour models (red, green, The third group of colour names were deliberately blue and cyan, magenta yellow) demonstrated the quirk obscure colours and were presented in easy to name of the Stroop Effect with simplicity and a hint of humour. colours. However the colour the word was depicted in As a result of feedback from the mid-way crit the posters did not correlate with the meaning of the word. This were not presented as an output as it was felt they did was to test if the Stroop Effect would be stronger or not address the research question sufficiently. weaker if the colour term is not known and therefore not identified with a colour. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

FIGURES 17 – 20, STROOPING THE COLOUR BOOK SPREADS

TYPES OF TERMS BASIC TERMS – CORRECT COLOURS TYPES OF TERMS BASIC TERMS – CORRECT COLOURS TYPES OF TERMS BASIC COLOUR TERMS TYPES OF TERMS BASIC COLOUR TERMS

orange yellow grey white

TYPES OF TERMS OBSCURE COLOUR TERMS TYPES OF TERMS OBSCURE COLOUR TERMS TYPES OF TERMS OBSCURE COLOUR TERMS TYPES OF TERMS OBSCURE COLOUR TERMS

bice adobe porphyry FIGURES 21 – 24, STROOPING THE COLOUR POSTERS

STROOPING STROOPING THE COLOUR THE COLOUR

red green

Virtually unique to the relationship between as it’s meaning. So it is easier to name the and can be read faster than colours can be Virtually unique to the relationship between as it’s meaning. So it is easier to name the and can be read faster than colours can be colour and language, the Stroop Effect is red ink of a word printed in red if the word named. However experiments demonstrat- colour and language, the Stroop Effect is red ink of a word printed in red if the word named. However experiments demonstrat- a psychological phenomenon that is re- itself also says ‘red’. Research has since al- ing the Reverse Stroop Effect have brought a psychological phenomenon that is re- itself also says ‘red’. Research has since al- ing the Reverse Stroop Effect have brought markably simple to demonstrate. First pub- lowed the development of the effect into these two theories into question. The aim markably simple to demonstrate. First pub- lowed the development of the effect into these two theories into question. The aim lished in England by John Ridley Stroop in a test, and has expanded to explore The of this projectis not only to demonstrate lished in England by John Ridley Stroop in a test, and has expanded to explore The of this projectis not only to demonstrate 1935, the effect has since been replicated Reverse Stroop Effect, which can be demon- the Stroop Effect, but to explore how the 1935, the effect has since been replicated Reverse Stroop Effect, which can be demon- the Stroop Effect, but to explore how the hundreds of times under controlled condi- strated through colour matching rather than use of more or less complex colour terms hundreds of times under controlled condi- strated through colour matching rather than use of more or less complex colour terms tions, reinforcing it’s validity as a recognised verbalising the word. Although a relatively and the presentation of those terms might tions, reinforcing it’s validity as a recognised verbalising the word. Although a relatively and the presentation of those terms might occurrence and making the original paper easy concept to grasp, the true explanation influence the effect. If a colour term is ob- occurrence and making the original paper easy concept to grasp, the true explanation influence the effect. If a colour term is ob- one of the most cited in the history of ex- of the Stroop Effect remains contentious. scure and unfamiliar does that interfere with one of the most cited in the history of ex- of the Stroop Effect remains contentious. scure and unfamiliar does that interfere with perimental psychology. In simple terms the It occurs because we are required to over- the processing of the colour of the word perimental psychology. In simple terms the It occurs because we are required to over- the processing of the colour of the word Stroop Effect refers to the identification of a ride interference from the colour the word in the same way as a basic colour term? At Stroop Effect refers to the identification of a ride interference from the colour the word in the same way as a basic colour term? At delay in naming the colour a word is printed denotes in our brains, in order to correctly the heart of the Stropp Effect and central to delay in naming the colour a word is printed denotes in our brains, in order to correctly the heart of the Stropp Effect and central to in if the word itself denotes a different col- identify the colour the word is printed in. this project lies a unique phenomenon that in if the word itself denotes a different col- identify the colour the word is printed in. this project lies a unique phenomenon that our. This is in comparison to the speed of The standard explanation put forward for encapsulates the complex relationship we our. This is in comparison to the speed of The standard explanation put forward for encapsulates the complex relationship we naming if the colour of the word is the same this was the words are read automatically have with colour and language. naming if the colour of the word is the same this was the words are read automatically have with colour and language. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

STROOPING STROOPING THE COLOUR THE COLOUR red cyan green magenta blue yellow

Virtually unique to the relationship between as it’s meaning. So it is easier to name the and can be read faster than colours can be Virtually unique to the relationship between as it’s meaning. So it is easier to name the and can be read faster than colours can be colour and language, the Stroop Effect is red ink of a word printed in red if the word named. However experiments demonstrat- colour and language, the Stroop Effect is red ink of a word printed in red if the word named. However experiments demonstrat- a psychological phenomenon that is re- itself also says ‘red’. Research has since al- ing the Reverse Stroop Effect have brought a psychological phenomenon that is re- itself also says ‘red’. Research has since al- ing the Reverse Stroop Effect have brought markably simple to demonstrate. First pub- lowed the development of the effect into these two theories into question. The aim markably simple to demonstrate. First pub- lowed the development of the effect into these two theories into question. The aim lished in England by John Ridley Stroop in a test, and has expanded to explore The of this projectis not only to demonstrate lished in England by John Ridley Stroop in a test, and has expanded to explore The of this projectis not only to demonstrate 1935, the effect has since been replicated Reverse Stroop Effect, which can be demon- the Stroop Effect, but to explore how the 1935, the effect has since been replicated Reverse Stroop Effect, which can be demon- the Stroop Effect, but to explore how the hundreds of times under controlled condi- strated through colour matching rather than use of more or less complex colour terms hundreds of times under controlled condi- strated through colour matching rather than use of more or less complex colour terms tions, reinforcing it’s validity as a recognised verbalising the word. Although a relatively and the presentation of those terms might tions, reinforcing it’s validity as a recognised verbalising the word. Although a relatively and the presentation of those terms might occurrence and making the original paper easy concept to grasp, the true explanation influence the effect. If a colour term is ob- occurrence and making the original paper easy concept to grasp, the true explanation influence the effect. If a colour term is ob- one of the most cited in the history of ex- of the Stroop Effect remains contentious. scure and unfamiliar does that interfere with one of the most cited in the history of ex- of the Stroop Effect remains contentious. scure and unfamiliar does that interfere with perimental psychology. In simple terms the It occurs because we are required to over- the processing of the colour of the word perimental psychology. In simple terms the It occurs because we are required to over- the processing of the colour of the word Stroop Effect refers to the identification of a ride interference from the colour the word in the same way as a basic colour term? At Stroop Effect refers to the identification of a ride interference from the colour the word in the same way as a basic colour term? At delay in naming the colour a word is printed denotes in our brains, in order to correctly the heart of the Stropp Effect and central to delay in naming the colour a word is printed denotes in our brains, in order to correctly the heart of the Stropp Effect and central to in if the word itself denotes a different col- identify the colour the word is printed in. this project lies a unique phenomenon that in if the word itself denotes a different col- identify the colour the word is printed in. this project lies a unique phenomenon that our. This is in comparison to the speed of The standard explanation put forward for encapsulates the complex relationship we our. This is in comparison to the speed of The standard explanation put forward for encapsulates the complex relationship we naming if the colour of the word is the same this was the words are read automatically have with colour and language. naming if the colour of the word is the same this was the words are read automatically have with colour and language. FIGURES 25 – 30, COLOUR MY WORDS BOOK SPREADS

Associated with sweetness, pink is a favoured colour for packaging confectionery. It is also associated with the innocence of young girls and thus a favourite colour for little girls’ bedrooms and clothing. Pink is known to have IN THE PINK short-term calming effects and is often the colour of walls in prison holding cells, particularly in America. Shocking hot offer a feeling of youth, fun, excitement, and

wild abandon. Vibrant, voluptuous pinks, however, offer a This phrase originally came from the English fox hunting tradition more sophisticated appeal, and magenta and fuchsia are where a rider was not granted the right to don the scarlet coloured jackets, called “pinks”, until he demonstrated superior perceived as sensual and theatrical. Lighter pinks offer a horsemanship and service to the hunt. Being “in the pink” meant sense of romanticism and healthy optimism. The colour also the rider had reached the pinnacle of achievement in the hunt. The use of the phrase “in the pink” evolved to be used more used in the phrases ‘seeing pink elephants’, ‘being tickled broadly to mean “the very pinnacle of” something, but not necessarily the hunt during the 18th century. This meaning of pink’ and ‘being in the pink’. the phrase is seen in literature beginning in the mid-1700s and continuing throughout the 19th century. It isn’t until the early 20th century that we see the phrase being used with its current Pink associations. It is unclear how it translated into a phrase that is now specifically health-related, but possibly, as it came into use among those not familiar with the hunt, it was thought that “pink” referred to the rosy glow of the complexion that is indicative of good health.

5.1.3 COLOUR MY WORDS

It was suggested in the proposal for this project that colour terms were also identified by Berlin & Kay as examining the semiotics of colour names would be a being primary colours in the evolution of colour terms valid research exercise and would contribute towards within a language. In fact, with the exception of blue, the understanding of how we use colour terms. As one the distribution of phrases across the other colour terms method of exploring this I began to collect phrases and also follows the order observed by Berlin & Kay. So that idioms that contained colour terms. Many of the phrases orange (or the equivalent) appears in few phrases and are very well known and ingrained in our language. As a is also one of the last basic colour terms to appear as a result they are indelibly associated with the colour term language evolves in question, for example red carpet and black death. The phrases were presented in a book structured in From a number of different sources, including online a similar manner to a dictionary, with a definition or references, A Dictionary of Colour by Ian Paterson and explanation accompanying each phrase. The sayings Seeing Red or Tickled Pink by Christine Amner, I was were also indexed alphabetically at the back of the able to collate a large body of phrases and sayings. I book, as a reference but appear in the colour that grouped these based on the relevant colour category, features in the phrase. The beginning of each section so phrases including the word ‘gold’ and phrases opens with an explanation of the meanings and including the word ‘yellow’ were arranged together. associations of each colour term and describes the From this I analysed the distribution of the phrases origin of a particularly well know idiom. Figures 25–30 across the colour terms. show spreads from the layout of the book.

Black, white and red were the colours that were included in the greatest number of phrases. Interestingly, these MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Pink

Hunting pinks Pink Fairies Pink pound Receive a pink slip, to Traditional jackets worn for fox hunting An English psychedelic rock band The purchasing power of gay men An American expression meaning to be sacked from your job In the pink, to be Pink Floyd Pink ribbon Rose tinted glasses, to see the world through In perfect health An English progressive rock band A symbol of the fight against breast cancer Having an optimistic view of the world Little pink pill Pink for a girl, blue for a boy Pink slip, a Rosé wine A slang name for a placebo, commonly a sugar pill used in medical trials A saying indicating gender colour associations Obsolete, a female undergarment A type of pink-coloured wine produced using a number of different methods Moss pink Pink gin Pink slip, to Rose-cheeked A type of flower also known as creeping Phlox An alcoholic drink of gin mixed with grenadine An American expression meaning to sack someone Blushing or in good health Paint the town pink, to Pink in the face, to turn Pink Spiders Rose-lipped See also ‘to paint the town red’, a lively and usually drunken night out To turn pink in the face from exertion or emotion An American pop punk band Young and healthy Parlour pink Pink lady Pink tea Rosy Associated with Communism or a left wing leaning A type of apple Obsolete, an American term for a formal tea party Optimistic Pink Pink lady, a Pink toothbrush Rosy outlook, to have a An American pop singer A cocktail made with gin, grenadine, egg white, lemon juice and cream A 1930’s advertising slogan for a toothpaste claimed to prevent bleeding gums Having a positive view on a situation Pink, a Pink lady Pink-collar worker Rosy-fingered dawn, a A type of flower from the genus Dianthus During the 1960s it referred to a barbiturate Job roles that are typically fulfilled by women A sunrise Pink, a Pink lady Pinked Strike me pink! Someone with left wing sympathies Volunteer hospital aides When the edges of something are notched or perforated Expression of astonishment or indignation Pink, to Pink Ladies, The Pinkeye Very pink of, The To pierce or to perforate The female companions of the T-Birds in the film and musical Grease Common term for conjunctivitis The very best of Pink out, to Pink of perfection, the Pinkeye Tickled pink, to be To cut fabric with pinking shears so that the edges do not fray Embodying the very best A type of potato with pink buds Very pleased Pink Pink Panther, The Pinkie Turn pink, to Champagne produced from rose wine or Champagne mixed with red wine A comedy film series from the 1960s The fifth and smallest finger on a human hand To co-operate with law enforcement authorities and provide information about accomplices in order to reduce one’s sentence Pink coat Pink Panther, The Pinking shears Traditional jackets worn for fox hunting A detective cartoon character that appears in the title sequence to The Pink Panther film Scissors that are used to cut a zigzag edge in fabric to prevent it from fraying series Pink elephants, to see Pinko Hallucinations brought on by heavy drinking Communist sympathiser

Red Orange

Another redskin bit the dust Curse you, Red Baron Agent Orange Orange County A phrase which used to be used when a cowboy shot a Native American Indian A line used by Snoopy in the cartoon strip by Charles M Schultz A powerful herbicide that was used by the American military in the Vietnam War against A county in the state of California, USA the South Vietnamese Beaten like a red-headed stepchild, to be Dago red Orange Crush To be badly beaten Cheap or poor quality red wine Agent Orange A song by REM An American punk band from Orange County Better a red face than a black heart Down the little red lane Orange Free State A proverb meaning it is better to be embarrassed than to be a cruel person Down someone’s throat Clockwork orange, a One of the provinces of South Africa A person lacking individuality because of institutional conditioning Better dead than Red Dyeing scarlet Orange Goblin It is better to be dead than be a Communist Obsolete, heavy drinking Clockwork Orange An English metal band The 1971 film by Stanley Kubrick Better red than dead Ears are red Orange juice Anti-nuclear slogan referring to the American-Soviet arms race, meaning it would be better When someone is talking about you Future’s bright, the future’s orange, the The juice of the orange fruit to let the Soviets win than there to be nuclear war The advertising slogan for UK mobile phone service provider Orange Eric the Red Orange pekoe tea Bleed red ink, to A Norse explorer who colonised Greenland House of Orange, The A type of black tea When a company is losing a lot of money The Dutch Royal Family Get the red light, to Orange River Blood red To be prevented from doing something Just peachy A river in South Africa the runs along the boundary of Orange Free State Red like the colour of blood Everything is great Go red, to Orange stick Bloody Red Shoes To blush Loyal Orange Institution A tool used in manicures to push back the nail cuticle An English punk duo An organisation set up in Northern Ireland to defend Protestantism Harvard , the Orange tree, an Captain Scarlet The daily student newspaper of Harvard University Orange The tree that produces the orange fruit A popular children’s television series from the 1960s created by Gerry Anderson A UK mobile phone and broadband service provider Harvard Crimson, the Orangeade Catch someone red-handed, to The athletics teams for Harvard University Orange blossom A juice made from orange juice, water and sugar To catch someone doing something wrong A flower of the orange tree, often used for weddings In the red, to be Orangemen Crimson tide To have financial accounts that are in debt, or to be in debt Orange blossom The name given to members of the Loyal Orange Institution in Northern Ireland A woman’s period A cocktail made with orange juice, gin and ice Infrared light Orangery, an Crimson Tide Light waves in the electromagnetic spectrum that are longer than visible red light Orange bowl A greenhouse used for growing oranges in colder climates A 1995 submarine film directed by Tony Scott An American college football game held in Florida Lady in Red Peaches and cream complexion Crimson tide A well know song by Chris de Burgh Orange bowl Describes woman with a fair complexion, often with freckles and red hair A cocktail of vodka and pomegranate juice The shell used as a shade for an opium lamp Left red-faced, to be Pretty as a To blush from embarrassment from a mistake A phrase use to describe an attractive young woman or child FIGURES 31 – 34, WHEN GREEN ISN’T GREEN BOOK SPREADS

30 31 34 35

PMS 3275 PMS 3278 PMS 3405 PMS 347

36 37 38 39

PMS 354 PMS 361 PMS 368 PMS 389

5.1.4 WHEN GREEN IS NOT GREEN

The term ‘green’ is often used interchangeably with on the list were a number of shades of green, so it ideas of sustainability, while the colour is frequently seemed appropriate to use this as a basis to illustrate used in design schemes to represent environmental the relationship between ‘green’ the colour, ‘green’ the awareness. This was discussed by Sara De Bondt in a colour name and ‘green’ the concept. lecture given at LCC, where she presented information on sustainable design as part of professional practise. As an extension of the investigation in to the semiotics This also covered guidance on colour printing and of colours and colour terms I presented the colours from included a list of Pantone Matching System colours the list of toxic inks as a book to serve as a reminder that are particularly toxic to the environment. Featured of the relationship between colour green and what it MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

FIGURES 35 – 36, WHEN GREEN ISN’T GREEN POSTER ITERATIONS

PMS 123 PMS 137 PMS 1375 PMS 151 PMS 1585 PMS 165

PMS 1655 PMS 172 Warm Red PMS 1788 PMS 185 PMS 192

PMS 213 PMS 259 PMS 3735 PMS 286 PMS 293 PMS 300

PMS 3005 Process Blue PMS 313 PMS 3135 PMS 320 PMS 327

PMS 3272 PMS 3275 PMS 3278 Green PMS 340 PMS 3405

PMS 347 PMS 354 PMS 361 PMS 368 PMS 389 PMS 419

PMS 438 PMS 445 PMS 450 PMS 457 PMS 464 PMS 4625

PMS 471 PMS 492 PMS 499 PMS 4975 PMS 506 PMS 513

PMS 5115 PMS 520 PMS 5185 PMS 527 PMS 5255 PMS 534

PMS 5463 PMS 5535 PMS 562 PMS 569 PMS 5747

Printed material comprises a large Green Graphic Design, Brian Dougherty and Printed material comprises a large Green Graphic Design, Brian Dougherty and proportion of the man-made colour we Celery Design have compiled a list of all of proportion of the man-made colour we Celery Design have compiled a list of all of encounter in our modern world. Off- the Pantone Matching System colours that encounter in our modern world. Off- the Pantone Matching System colours that set lithography, four colour process and contain high levels of barium and copper, set lithography, four colour process and contain high levels of barium and copper, Pantone’s Matching System have enabled hazardous metals, which can accumulate in Pantone’s Matching System have enabled hazardous metals, which can accumulate in us to paint the world in glorious technicolor the environment, contaminating water, soil, us to paint the world in glorious technicolor the environment, contaminating water, soil, ever more cheaply, over the last few poisoning wildlife and threatening the health ever more cheaply, over the last few poisoning wildlife and threatening the health decades. However, this has come at a price. of communities. This poster presents the decades. However, this has come at a price. of communities. This poster presents the In recent years the design industry has been colours from that list, in all their toxic glory, In recent years the design industry has been colours from that list, in all their toxic glory, gradually waking up to the environmental as a reminder to designers of the impact of gradually waking up to the environmental as a reminder to designers of the impact of damage caused by our rainbow of printing specifying certain colours in design schemes. damage caused by our rainbow of printing specifying certain colours in design schemes. inks. Through increases in recycling we Among them are a number of green hues inks. Through increases in recycling we Among them are a number of green hues now know that red-based colours are more that contain Copper-phthalocyanine and are now know that red-based colours are more that contain Copper-phthalocyanine and are difficult to remove from paper, using more particularly harmful to the environment. Not difficult to remove from paper, using more particularly harmful to the environment. Not chemicals and energy before it can be made all are created equal and some are chemicals and energy before it can be made all greens are created equal and some are into new. Petroleum based inks release little more than greenwash. into new. Petroleum based inks release little more than greenwash. volatile organic compounds, polluting the air volatile organic compounds, polluting the air and water supply, while damaging the health and water supply, while damaging the health When Green isn’t Green of those who work with them. In their book, When Green isn’t Green of those who work with them. In their book,

is often used to stand for. Spreads from this book are presented in Figures 31–34. Poster iterations (Figures 35–36) were also originally produced to accompany the book. However, these have not been included in the final output as they are not significant enough to the investigation as a whole. FIGURES 37 – 44, COLOUR BY NUMBERS BOOK LAYOUT ITERATIONS

COLOUR BY NUMBERS COLOUR BY NUMBERS

Brown Gold Wine

Stone Coffee

Grey

Brown Stone Gold Coffee Wine Grey 1197 1247 1320 1540 1634 1770 1197 1247 1320 1540 1634 1770 1000 1010 1020 1030 1040 1050 1060 1070 1080 1090 1100 1110 1120 1130 1140 1150 1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1000 1010 1020 1030 1040 1050 1060 1070 1080 1090 1100 1110 1120 1130 1140 1150 1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

COLOUR BY NUMBERS COLOUR BY NUMBERS

Brown Brown

Stone Stone

Gold Gold

Coffee Coffee

Wine Wine

Grey Grey 1197 1247 1320 1540 1634 1770 1197 1247 1320 1540 1634 1770 1000 1010 1020 1030 1040 1050 1060 1070 1080 1090 1100 1110 1120 1130 1140 1150 1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1000 1010 1020 1030 1040 1050 1060 1070 1080 1090 1100 1110 1120 1130 1140 1150 1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

5.1.5 COLOUR BY NUMBERS

As a final approach for examining the body of words document the distribution of colour terms within the we used to describe colour I used Wordcount.org to body of words. Some of the more obscure colour terms analyse how frequently colour terms are used in English. did not feature on the list at all, indicating how rarely Wordcount is an online experiment that tracks the way they feature in our language. However a collection of we use language and ranks words in the order of how over 200 individual colour names were ranked. often they are used. The application contains 88,600 words and can be used to search for terms or rankings. This sequence was presented as a book with a numerical I inputted non-compound colours terms, from the list scale running along the bottom of the page. The ranking collated early in the investigation, into Wordcount to of each colour term was marked in the correct position MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

COLOUR BY NUMBERS COLOUR BY NUMBERS

Brown Stone Gold Coffee Wine Grey Brown Stone Gold Coffee Wine Grey 1197 1247 1320 1540 1634 1770 1197 1247 1320 1540 1634 1770 1000 1010 1020 1030 1040 1050 1060 1070 1080 1090 1100 1110 1120 1130 1140 1150 1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1000 1010 1020 1030 1040 1050 1060 1070 1080 1090 1100 1110 1120 1130 1140 1150 1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

COLOUR BY NUMBERS COLOUR BY NUMBERS

Brown Stone Gold Coffee Wine Grey Brown Stone Gold Coffee Wine Grey 1197 1247 1320 1540 1634 1770 1197 1247 1320 1540 1634 1770 1000 1010 1020 1030 1040 1050 1060 1070 1080 1090 1100 1110 1120 1130 1140 1150 1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1000 1010 1020 1030 1040 1050 1060 1070 1080 1090 1100 1110 1120 1130 1140 1150 1160 1170 1180 1190 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1260 1270 1280 1290 1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

without any adjustments made to average out the This feature of the design was developed after a number distribution of the terms. This meant that some spreads of iterations, which are shown above in Figures 37–44. of the book featured numerous terms while others were Pages from the final design are shown in Figures 45–52. blank. However, this served to demonstrate how the different terms were dispersed throughout Wordcount. In order to highlight the changes in frequency indicated by the rankings to a greater degree, the position in the was also marked by a coloured circle which decreased in size, in proportion to how often the word was used. FIGURES 45 – 52, COLOUR BY NUMBERS BOOK SPREADS BOOK –52, COLOUR 45 BY NUMBERS FIGURES

16000 1000 16010 1010 16020 1020 16030 1030 16040 1040 16050 16055 1050 16060 1060 16070 1070 16080 1080 16090 1090 16100 1100 16110 1110 16120 1120 16130 1130 Grape 16140 1140 16150 16160 1150 16160 1160

16170 1170 Brown 16180 1180 16190 1190 1197 Burgundy 16200 1200 16210 1210 16220 1220 16233 Stone 16230 1230 16240 1240 1247 16250 1250 16260 1260 16270 1270 16280 1280 16290 1290

16300 1300 Gold 16310 1310 1320 16320 1320 16330 1330 16340 1340 16350 1350 16360 1360 16370 1370 16380 1380 16390 1390 16400 1400 16410 1410 16420 1420 16430 1430 16440 1440 16450 1450 16460 1460 16470 1470 16480 1480 16490 1490

16500 1500 16510 1510 Coffee 16520 1520 16530 1530 1540 16540 1540 16550 1550 16560 1560 16570 1570 16580 1580 16590 1590 16600 1600 16610 1610 Wine 16620 1620 1634 16630 1630 16640 1640 16650 1650 16660 1660 16670 1670 16680 1680 16690 1690 16700 1700

16710 Poppy 1710 16720 16734 1720 16730 1730 16740 1740

16750 1750 Grey 16760 1760 1770 16770 1770 16780 1780 16790 1790 16800 1800

16810 1810 16820 16827 1820 16830 1830 16840 1840 16850 1850 16860 1860 16870 1870 16880 1880 16890 1890 16900 1900 16910 1910 16920 1920 16930 1930 16940 1940 16950 1950 16960 1960 16970 1970 16980 1980 16990 1990 Sulphur 33000 8000 33010 8010 8022 33020 8020 33030 8030 33040 8040 33050 8050 33060 8060 33070 8070 33080 8080 33090 8090 33100 8100 33110 8110 33120 8120 33130 8130 8143 Ink 33140 8140 33150 8150 33160 8160 33170 8170 33180 8180 33190 8190 33200 8200 Oatmeal 33210 8210 33220 8220 33230 33250 8230 33240 8240 33250 8250 33260 8260 33270 8270 33280 8280 33290 8290 33300 8300 33310 8310 33320 8320 33330 8330 33340 8340 33350 8350 33360 8360 33370 8370

33380 8380 Cardinal 33390 8390

33400 Cranberry 8400 8416 33410 8410 33420 8420 33430 33438 8430 33440 8440 33450 8450 33460 8460 33470 8470 33480 8480 33490 8490

33500 8500 33510 8510 33520 8520 33530 8530 33540 8540 33550 8550 33560 8560 33570 8570 33580 8580 8585 33590 8590 33600 8600 33610 8610 33620 8620 33630 8630 33640 8640 33650 8650 33660 8660 33670 8670 33680 8680 33690 8690

33700 8700 Tomato 33710 8710 33720 8720 8731 33730 8730 33740 8740 33750 8750 33760 8760 33770 8770 33780 8780 33790 8790 33800 Garnet 8800 33810 8810 33820 33830 8820 33830 8830 33840 8840 33850 8850 33860 8860 33870 8870 33880 8880 33890 8890 33900 8900 33910 8910 33920 8920

33930 Magenta 8930 33940 8940 33950 33961 8950 33960 8960 33970 8970 33980 8980 33990 8990 MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Vermilion Sable Argent Malachite Cyan 40241 40321 54072 54285 40863 54782 40000 40010 40020 40030 40040 40050 40060 40070 40080 40090 40100 40110 40120 40130 40140 40150 40160 40170 40180 40190 40200 40210 40220 40230 40240 40250 40260 40270 40280 40290 40300 40310 40320 40330 40340 40350 40360 40370 40380 40390 40400 40410 40420 40430 40440 40450 40460 40470 40480 40490 40500 40510 40520 40530 40540 40550 40560 40570 40580 40590 40600 40610 40620 40630 40640 40650 40660 40670 40680 40690 40700 40710 40720 40730 40740 40750 40760 40770 40780 40790 40800 40810 40820 40830 40840 40850 40860 40870 40880 40890 40900 40910 40920 40930 40940 40950 40960 40970 40980 40990 54000 54010 54020 54030 54040 54050 54060 54070 54080 54090 54100 54110 54120 54130 54140 54150 54160 54170 54180 54190 54200 54210 54220 54230 54240 54250 54260 54270 54280 54290 54300 54310 54320 54330 54340 54350 54360 54370 54380 54390 54400 54410 54420 54430 54440 54450 54460 54470 54480 54490 54500 54510 54520 54530 54540 54550 54560 54570 54580 54590 54600 54610 54620 54630 54640 54650 54660 54670 54680 54690 54700 54710 54720 54730 54740 54750 54760 54770 54780 54790 54800 54810 54820 54830 54840 54850 54860 54870 54880 54890 54900 54910 54920 54930 54940 54950 54960 54970 54980 54990

Viridian Alizarin Loden Heliotrope 60149 73119 73653 60689 60000 60010 60020 60030 60040 60050 60060 60070 60080 60090 60100 60110 60120 60130 60140 60150 60160 60170 60180 60190 60200 60210 60220 60230 60240 60250 60260 60270 60280 60290 60300 60310 60320 60330 60340 60350 60360 60370 60380 60390 60400 60410 60420 60430 60440 60450 60460 60470 60480 60490 60500 60510 60520 60530 60540 60550 60560 60570 60580 60590 60600 60610 60620 60630 60640 60650 60660 60670 60680 60690 60700 60710 60720 60730 60740 60750 60760 60770 60780 60790 60800 60810 60820 60830 60840 60850 60860 60870 60880 60890 60900 60910 60920 60930 60940 60950 60960 60970 60980 60990 73000 73010 73020 73030 73040 73050 73060 73070 73080 73090 73100 73110 73120 73130 73140 73150 73160 73170 73180 73190 73200 73210 73220 73230 73240 73250 73260 73270 73280 73290 73300 73310 73320 73330 73340 73350 73360 73370 73380 73390 73400 73410 73420 73430 73440 73450 73460 73470 73480 73490 73500 73510 73520 73530 73540 73550 73560 73570 73580 73590 73600 73610 73620 73630 73640 73650 73660 73670 73680 73690 73700 73710 73720 73730 73740 73750 73760 73770 73780 73790 73800 73810 73820 73830 73840 73850 73860 73870 73880 73890 73900 73910 73920 73930 73940 73950 73960 73970 73980 73990 5.2 FOCUS 2

The Names of Colours: How they visually relate to each manipulation processes. Thirty was a suitable number other. for this exercise, as it would generate a reasonably sized body of images without creating an excessive To explore this aspect of the research question, I have time burden. As trialled in Unit 2, (as preparation for the employed a variety of strategies, including generative Major Project), I applied different digital manipulation methods, photography and digital image manipulation. techniques as a way of analysing the colour content of each image.

5.2.1 SEARCHING FOR THE RAINBOW The images were indexed by Colourphon.co.uk, resulting in 9x9 grid of colours. They were blurred with The main activity carried out in response to this aspect a specific and constant amount of Gaussian blur in of the research question was using Google Image search Photoshop and finally, also using Photoshop, the colour as a research tool. This approach was not previously values for the pixels in the image were averaged to give planned and it was not included in the original proposal a solid block of colour. Each of these processes altered for the project, beginning as no more than an exercise the coherence of the image to a different degree. in understanding. Initially I began using Google Image They moved from defined forms, into indistinguishable Search to provide a visual reference for colour names shapes, allowing dominant areas of colour to appear that I was unfamiliar with, which had been collected more clearly and others subside, until finally, through throughout the course of the research. While it proved averaging, a consolidated block of colour could emerge. to be a very useful process, through repeated attempts it became apparent that the search results themselves The images were grouped by process, beginning generated a fascinating body of images, providing an with the original results and were presented in the insight into the changing nature of the internet and the sequence they ranked in the search. This allowed the relationships between the colours in the images and the images to be compared by hue and process and it was search terms. possible to observe how each effect altered the colour composition of the images. Spreads from the resulting Acknowledging this observation, I devised a structured book of images are presented in Figures 53–56. A series methodology for using Google Image Search as a of accompanying posters was also created, shown in generative research activity. Initially I began by inputting Figures 57–60. However these were not included in the the eleven basic colour terms in English: red, orange, output for the project as the exercise was not intended yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, black, grey and as a final outcome of the research. white into Google Image Search with the addition of the word ‘colour’. This concession was an undesirable As a body of work, the images represent a visual but a necessary consequence of the number of high interpretation of each colour term, mediated by Google, profile celebrities with colour terms in their names, such and function as a snapshot of the Internet, that due as the rapper Chris Brown and the singer Pink, which to it’s constantly shifting nature, can never be exactly created massive distortions in the results of the initial repeated. They show not only the variety in responses trials. In addition to this, before beginning the process to the colours, but also the level of consensus across I cleared my browser history and cookies, so that the the range of images. Despite the differences within the results would not be influenced by my search history. I results, from the collection of images produced it is then took, without exception, the first thirty images from possible to discern a level collective appreciation of the the search results, as a basis for analysis using image eleven basic colour terms. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

FIGURES 53 – 56, SEARCHING FOR THE RAINBOW BOOK SPREADS

RED SEARCH RESULTS RED SEARCH RESULTS RED PIXELATED RED PIXELATED

RED BLURRED RED BLURRED RED COLOUR AVERAGED RED COLOUR AVERAGED FIGURES 57 – 60, SEARCHING FOR THE RAINBOW POSTER SERIES

The philosopher Wittgenstein famously images retrieved by each search. Although snapshot of colour on the Internet that The philosopher Wittgenstein famously images retrieved by each search. Although breaking each one down into its dominant asked ‘How do I know that this color is translated through Google’s algorithms, due to it’s constantly shifting nature, can asked ‘How do I know that this color is translated through Google’s algorithms, blocks of colour. As a body of work this red? —It would be an answer to say: collectively, the images represent the never be replicated exactly. It shows not red? —It would be an answer to say: collectively, the images represent the is a visual representation of each colour I have learnt English.’ But how do we level of understanding of colour and only the variety of responses to the names I have learnt English.’ But how do we level of understanding of colour and term, mediated by Google and functions know what is red? In today’s digital age colour terms by those posting them. The of colours but also the level of consensus know what is red? In today’s digital age colour terms by those posting them. The as a snapshot of colour on the Internet that perhaps a more pertinent response methodology for this exercise involved across the range of images. This method perhaps a more pertinent response methodology for this exercise involved due to it’s constantly shifting nature, can would be: ‘Google it’. The use of Google inputting each of the eleven basic colour is but one of the many possible ways of would be: ‘Google it’. The use of Google inputting each of the eleven basic colour never be replicated exactly. It shows not image search as a tool to provide a visual terms into Google Image Search with the exploring the relationship between colour image search as a tool to provide a visual terms into Google Image Search with the only the variety of responses to the names interpretation of colour terms began as no addition of the word ‘colour’. I then took and language but it one that is truly a interpretation of colour terms began as no addition of the word ‘colour’. I then took of colours but also the level of consensus more than an exercise in understanding, the first thirty images from the search reflection of our digital age. more than an exercise in understanding, the first thirty images from the search across the range of images. This method However, repetition of the process began results as a foundation to work with and However, repetition of the process began results as a foundation to work with and is but one of the many possible ways of to reveal both the changing nature of analyse. This poster displays the original to reveal both the changing nature of analyse. The images presented on this exploring the relationship between colour the internet and the similarities and images from the search, without any the internet and the similarities and poster have been processed using the and language but it one that is truly a Searching For The Rainbow differences between the colours in the image manipulation and functions as a Searching For The Rainbow differences between the colours in the online colour analysis tool Colourphon, reflection of our digital age. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

The philosopher Wittgenstein famously images retrieved by each search. Although in Photoshop, creating colour fields from The philosopher Wittgenstein famously images retrieved by each search. Although image, created using the Average tool asked ‘How do I know that this color is translated through Google’s algorithms, each one. As a body of work this is a asked ‘How do I know that this color is translated through Google’s algorithms, in Photoshop. As a body of work this is a red? —It would be an answer to say: collectively, the images represent the visual representation of each colour term, red? —It would be an answer to say: collectively, the images represent the visual representation of each colour term, I have learnt English.’ But how do we level of understanding of colour and mediated by Google and functions as a I have learnt English.’ But how do we level of understanding of colour and mediated by Google and functions as a know what is red? In today’s digital age colour terms by those posting them. The snapshot of colour on the Internet that know what is red? In today’s digital age colour terms by those posting them. The snapshot of colour on the Internet that perhaps a more pertinent response methodology for this exercise involved due to it’s constantly shifting nature, can perhaps a more pertinent response methodology for this exercise involved due to it’s constantly shifting nature, can would be: ‘Google it’. The use of Google inputting each of the eleven basic colour never be replicated exactly. It shows not would be: ‘Google it’. The use of Google inputting each of the eleven basic colour never be replicated exactly. It shows not image search as a tool to provide a visual terms into Google Image Search with the only the variety of responses to the names image search as a tool to provide a visual terms into Google Image Search with the only the variety of responses to the names interpretation of colour terms began as no addition of the word ‘colour’. I then took of colours but also the level of consensus interpretation of colour terms began as no addition of the word ‘colour’. I then took of colours but also the level of consensus more than an exercise in understanding, the first thirty images from the search across the range of images. This method more than an exercise in understanding, the first thirty images from the search across the range of images. This method However, repetition of the process began results as a foundation to work with and is but one of the many possible ways of However, repetition of the process began results as a foundation to work with and is but one of the many possible ways of to reveal both the changing nature of analyse. The images presented on this exploring the relationship between colour to reveal both the changing nature of analyse. The blocks of colour presented exploring the relationship between colour the internet and the similarities and poster have been processed using a and language but it one that is truly a the internet and the similarities and on this poster represent an average and language but it one that is truly a Searching For The Rainbow differences between the colours in the specific amount of the Gaussian Blur tool reflection of our digital age. Searching For The Rainbow differences between the colours in the colour value of all the pixels in each reflection of our digital age. FIGURES 61 – 62, TRANSFORMING THE RAINBOW BOOK SPREADS

RED ORIGINAL IMAGES – LAYERED RED VERTICAL SLICE – STRETCHED

5.2.2 TRANSFORMING THE RAINBOW

In addition to the processes described above, I It acted as a representation of that particular colour extended this line of enquiry by using a combination term, mediated both by Google and Photoshop. of the search results and the processed images of the basic colour terms. Again, using digital manipulation I In addition to this, images have been created for each applied other processes to the images in an attempt to of the colour terms by taking a vertical, one pixel wide gain further insight into the relationships between the section through the layered original images. This was colours in the images. then stretched across a wider area to give a greater impression of the layering and to portray the colour All of the processed images for each term were layered composition of the image in a different way. (Figure 62) with transparency to give an impression of all the colours as a whole. It allowed the areas saturated with Collectively, the experiments represent the conclusion the colour used as the search term to be seen more of this particular area of investigation. While they clearly, see Figures 61 and 63–66. A sample of the created some striking and appealing imagery, the centre area of the averaged images (Figure 65) was method of applying additional digital processes to the taken and enlarged (Figure 66). This was one method for images presented little opportunity for further insight or producing a culmination of the averages in the sample. knowledge. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

FIGURES 63 – 66, TRANSFORMING THE RAINBOW BOOK SPREADS

RED COLOURPHON IMAGES – LAYERED RED BLURRED IMAGES – LAYERED

RED AVERAGED IMAGES – LAYERED RED AVERAGED IMAGES – CUMULATIVE COLOUR FIGURES 67 – 74, LOOKING FOR HUE BOOK SPREADS

RUST SCARLET TERRACOTTA SIENNA

WATERMELON CORAL MAGENTA

5.2.3 LOOKING FOR HUE

To examine the process of using Google Image Search Unlike the previous exercises, the images were not in another way, I broadened the search to commonly subject to any additional processes. This study focussed known, but less widely used terms. As before, the colour purely on the comparison of results from Google names were used as search terms in Google Image Image searches, using colour terms beyond the basic search. The first thirty images were presented in the eleven. This method allowed for subtle distinctions to order in which they were retrieved and the groups of be observed between colours that are often regarded results were then arranged by hue over a sequence as interchangeable, for example wine, claret, maroon of pages so it was possible to appreciate the colours resulting from different searches. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

INDIGO COBALT ULTRAMARINE

CYAN AQUA

and burgundy. It also allowed for similarities to be seen rarely, if ever, definitive. As with the basic colour terms, between colours that are generally thought of as more it was possible to see that, despite many different disparate. Example pages from the book are shown interpretations, there was in all but a few cases (notably above in Figures 67–74. puce), a degree of consistency across the image search results. The outcome of the Google image searches may not provide a conclusive answer to what a colour looks like, however it is a reflection of the fact that colour is 5.2.4 SAY WHAT YOU SEE

To explore the visual relationships between colour terms object depicted. Although the list contained many using a different approach, I referred back to the list of terms, I deliberately discounted particularly obscure descriptive terms that had been collected in the early names like cinnabar and porphyry because it is unlikely stages of the project. that the majority of viewers would have identified the link between the object and the colour. While it is Since the beginnings of language we have borrowed impossible to gage whether everyone would recognise the words for things in the world around us to describe ‘’ it is not unreasonable to assume that most the colours we see. Even what we now know as abstract people would be relatively familiar with the objects that colour terms in English, like red and black, originally have been presented, and therefore should be able referred to something else like blood or night. To reflect to determine most of colour names depicted in the this I analysed the list for colour terms that were also images. familiar objects or materials and that you might expect to see in everyday life. The exercise proved to be an To test this, different versions of some images were enlightening process, as it is easy to forget how many presented to ascertain which ones communicated the of our colour terms are derived from things in the real colour/object most successfully. As part of the editing world. process for the book, spreads was shown to a number of people unconnected with the course and the project To develop this approach I began to collect examples of to make sure that all of the colours/objects could be the colour terms I had identified, such as raspberry and recognised. Finally, to alleviate any uncertainty, an index fuchsia. It was clear that the colours of the objects were of all of the colour names/objects was provided at the key to creating a visually appealing presentation and back of the book, with a corresponding number on could be used as a reminder of the connection between each page. This element of the design was the subject the colours we see and the words we use. To focus on of a number of iterations in order to strike a balance this relationship I photographed each of the objects between providing a reference without distracting in isolation, against a white background as a way of from the image on the page. Some examples of these creating emphasis. These images were arranged by hue, iterations can be seen in Figures 75–78. Spreads of the one per page and collated as a book. To engage the final layout are shown in Figures 79–86. viewer I included objects that could be identified with relative ease and titled the book ‘Say What You See’ as an invitation for people to guess the colour name/ MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

FIGURES 75 – 78, SAY WHAT YOU SEE BOOK LAYOUT ITERATIONS

TOMATO 26 MELON 27 TOMATO MELON

30 31 30 31

26 27 26 27

30 31 30 31 FIGURES 79 – 86, SAY WHAT YOU SEE BOOK SPREADS

08 09 14 15

30 31 34 35 MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

42 43 44 45

48 49 62 63 5.2.5 DECONSTRUCTING THE RAINBOW

As a final approach to exploring this aspect of the research question I considered how we divide the spectrum into colour categories using language. Many of this inconsistencies and disagreements that arise when describing or labelling colours occur when the hue in question is close to the boundary between two colour names. For example bluey-green or greeny blue.

Examining the transitions that occur in colour gradients was a useful method for exploring this concept. By deconstructing the gradients into varying numbers of equidistant steps the change from one colour to another was more apparent. As we all see colour slightly differently the point at which we perceive green to become yellow will always vary. This study was not designed to provide a definitive answer. However, by presenting the transitions as defined stages the viewer is able to observe and question where the boundaries between colour categories lie.

Presented in the book (Figures 87–90) are a number of different gradient studies that demonstrate different methods of dividing gradients into steps in order to understand how the colours change throughout the process. These are accompanied by referenced quotations and statements that discuss the nature of our colour spectrum and the way we categorise it with language. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

FIGURES 87 – 90, DECONSTRUCTING THE RAINBOW BOOK SPREADS

SPECTRUM STUDIES FOURTEEN DIVISIONS SPECTRUM STUDIES TWENTY-ONE DIVISIONS GRADIENT STUDIES HOW DOES MAGENTA BECOME RED? GRADIENT STUDIES HOW DOES MAGENTA BECOME RED?

GRADIENT STUDIES WHEN DOES RED BECOME ORANGE? GRADIENT STUDIES WHEN DOES ORANGE BECOME YELLOW? GRADIENT STUDIES IS THIS GREEN OR BLUE? 5.3 FOCUS 3

The Names of Colours: The consistency of of questions rather than having different groups of their application, interpretation, definition and participants. This would allow for a more reliable and understanding. accurate comparison of results.

For this aspect of the project I adopted both After reviewing my proposal and the original research quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. activities for the project I decided to discard the This was particularly appropriate because of the focus investigation of how people colour their mental images. on how colour names are used (or misused) by real For example when prompted by the word ‘grass’ what people. This has been addressed with a quantitative percentage of people have a mental image of grass that approach, to gain a broad-based response to a set is green? I felt that this aspect of the original proposal of inquiries in to this subject. In contrast, in depth, strayed too far, focussing on associations rather than one-to-one interviews with a select group of experts, colour names. provides a qualitative contribution to this investigation. For the design and execution of both research activities After much reflection and evaluation on how others I have referred to guidance on best practises in data had surveyed colour, including Nathan Moroney for collection, to ensure that not only the most appropriate The Colour Thesaurus, Dimitris Mylonas for his Online methods are employed, but that methods ensure Colour Naming Model, Rob and Nick Carter for their responses that have a relevant relationship to the Perception of Colour Project, CrowdFlower’s Interactive research question. Research Methods Knowledge Base Colour Label Explorer, and Orlagh O’Brien’s colour work (http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/index.php) for Emotionally Vague my survey took on two purposes. has proved a valuable resource in this process, as has The first was to gather views concerning general ideas reference to Orlagh O’Brien’s project Emotionally Vague about colour naming. These included straight-forward (Fig. 134, Appendix A). questions designed to assess colour vocabulary and attitudes towards communicating colour. To examine colour vocabulary example questions involved asking 5.3.1 QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH people to name as many colours as they could. This was the first research question in the survey and also As outlined in the Action Plan of the proposal for acted as a primer for later questions, to encourage this project, surveys initially comprised a large part participants to think broadly about the colour names of my research activities. Originally I had planned to they knew. Attitudes towards talking about colour divide the various concepts under investigation into were addressed by asking questions, similar to some separate surveys. However on reflection, I concluded posed for my qualitative research interviews, including that this method was impractical, time-consuming ‘Do you ever struggle to describe exactly what colour and unnecessary. By editing, carefully structuring something is?’, ‘Do you think it is important to be able the questions and only seeking information that was to describe a colour accurately?’ and ‘Have you ever genuinely relevant to the project I was able to reduce had a disagreement with someone about what colour the questionnaire into a format that was condensed something was?’. Responses to these questions allowed enough to be issued as one survey. This was a far more me to ascertain how much people thought about how satisfactory arrangement as it was likely to encourage they communicate colour generally and provided further a greater level of participation and meant that the validation for this research project. respondents would be consistent across the series MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

The second function of the survey was to gather For the following section of the survey, participants were data that could be converted into visual structures. asked the reverse: to select a colour that they thought Collectively, these would form the output for the major best represented a given name. As well as the eleven project and could be used to make a statement on how basic colour terms, I selected eleven terms that are we communicate colour using language, specifically still relatively well known but less commonly used and our use (or misuse) of colour names. As several pieces eleven colour terms that are obscure and rarely used in of research, mentioned earlier, had already surveyed English. colour naming, I wanted to somehow differentiate this research and avoid replicating their methods and These two lists of colour names were taken from results too closely. All of the existing research I had the body of colour names that were collated at the looked at examined only one half of the relationship beginning of the project. The final lists included in the between colours and colour names. Either presenting survey were the result of numerous rounds of revision. participants with a colour and asking them to name it, The initial shortlist was submitted to the course blog or presented participants with a colour name and asked for comment, to reduce the potential for personal bias them to select a colour they thought best represented in the selection process and to ensure that the obscure it. As a result I decided to structure my survey so that it terms were genuinely obscure. The final lists were then examined both of these aspects. adjusted to represent a more balanced range of colours, in order to avoid the dominance of particular hues within To add a further dimension to the study I wanted to the set. examine if the relationship between colours and colour names changed as the names and colours became more The charts created for participants to select colours unusual. Rather than survey a large quantity of colour from for this section of the survey were also produced names or colours, as others have, I chose to base this using Pantone’s Solid to Process colour book. Initially, aspect of the survey on three sets of eleven colours and devising a suitable method for the inclusion of a colour three sets of eleven colour names, totalling sixty-six palette proved to be a hurdle, delaying the launch of the stimuli. survey. I lacked the technical knowledge to create an interactive colour picker, as used in Rob & Nick Carter’s The foundation for this approach were the eleven basic Perception of Colour Project. Acquiring the necessary colour terms in English. These terms served as the skills to construct such a device would take up a simplest level of colour and colour name identification. disproportionate amount of time, relative to the project To build on this I devised two additional sets of eleven as a whole and the effectiveness of the result. The colours that were progressively further away from the eventual solution was to number the colours in the chart focai of the eleven basic colour categories. These sets, (I chose to disregard Pantone’s numbering conventions combined with the eleven basic colours, provided the as it could have proved confusing and was likely to be thirty-three colour stimuli for participants to name. meaningless to many participants), providing a reference All of the colours for the swatches were selected for both participants completing the survey, and for from Pantone’s Solid to Process colour book, so that myself to interpret the results. The chart is composed of corresponding CMYK and RGB values were available for just over half of the colours, arranged in the sequence my own reference. that they appear in the Pantone book. Originally, the intention was to include the complete range. However, after an initial pilot of the survey, the feedback indicated that there were too many colours to choose from. As for the world wide web. Further more, colorimetric a result the colour book was reduced to an abridged display models and color appearance models allow version. This still featured an ample range for spectral some estimation of likely areas of maximum variability. and non-spectral colours but lessened the sense of It is also unclear when and if all of these issues can, or overwhelming choice. even should be, addressed such that the real world is in better agreement with laboratory conditions.’ (Moroney, As well as the main body of questions about 2003). communicating colour, the start of the survey included two additional sections. The first was designed to In response to these two different approaches, I opted gather key demographic information, such as age, for a solution somewhere between the two. I do not gender, level of English and involvement in creative have the knowledge to use colourmetric models to take industries, in order to enable the comparison of results into account the influence of hardware and viewing across different categories and to look for evidence of conditions on responses, unlike Nathan Moroney. As patterns. The second set of questions aims to ascertain a result I felt it necessary to include questions in the the viewing conditions for each participant. As the survey that address the issue instead. However, my own appearance of colour can vary, both across devices questions were far less detailed than those of the Online and types of screen and with levels and sources of Colour Naming Experiment. As I also do not have the luminescence or ambient light, I found it necessary required skills to produce a statistical analysis on the to take these factors into account. In a survey of this influence of different conditions, therefore it would be nature, it would be impossible to control all these superfluous to collect data to this effect. variables, without administering it under laboratory conditions. This was beyond the time and resources The survey was piloted to a small sample of people, of available, so acknowledging the potential for variability mixed gender and age, who were unconnected to the was an appropriate compromise. Notably, the two other project and the creative industries. This was to ensure online colour naming projects that I referred to for this that all of the questions could be easily understood and project, An Online Colour Naming Experiment and the answered by those not involved or unfamiliar with the Unconstrained Web-based Color Naming Experiment subject of this research. The final version of the survey, by Dimitris Mylonas and Nathan Moroney respectively, which was launched to the public, can be see in full in take two opposing approaches to the issue of viewing Appendix B of this report. consistency. The Online Colour Naming Experiment gives both instructions for basic screen calibration, To launch the survey live to the wider public I used asks for details of display and viewing conditions online survey generator Surveymonkey. Although there and includes a colour vision test. In contrast, the are many online survey hosts available, after reviewing Unconstrained Web-based Color Naming Experiment, a range of potential options Surveymonkey presented requires no such information from participants. In the itself as the most comprehensive and straightforward to methodology for the experiment Nathan Moroney use. It produced a professional and simple to complete acknowledges that ‘uncontrolled hardware, software and survey, with a wide range of available question and viewing conditions’ (Moroney, 2003) are a disadvantage answer formats. The in-built analytical tools also allowed of the web-based method. However, he goes on to me to track the number of completed surveys and gave mention that ‘the advent of sRGB has provided some a summary break down of the distribution of answers for degree of convergence in color encoding and display multiple-choice questions. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

5.3.2 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

The survey distribution followed a random sample To compliment the quantitative element of primary approach, as no one specific demographic group data collection for this project I have supported it was targeted and a demographically representative with a qualitative research method. This activity was sample of the general population was not actively sort. not written into the proposal as it was not originally Although there are pros and cons to both random anticipated. and stratified sampling, random sampling is generally considered as a valid approach. During the course of the project I have encountered a number of people who work with colour and are The target sample size for the survey was set at specialists or experts in their respective field, from two hundred responses. After reviewing other colour perception, dying, working with pigments to methodologies for similar research projects, Nathan colour management. To exploit the potential of this Moroney’s research, for instance received 670 unique collective resource I devised a set of questions to use responses, but over a far longer period, two hundred as the basis for in depth interviews. The questions responses was judged to be an adequate sample size were structured around themes and concepts that I for research of this nature and level. I felt it necessary to had identified in the course of my research as being specify an aim for the number of responses, to ensure fundamental to the project. Some of these are outlined that this aspect of the research was viable. This involved in ‘Key Concepts’ and the full list of questions can be careful consideration, to strike a balance between a seen in Appendix C. sample size that would create a valid conclusion and one that could be processed within the time constraints of I was able to arrange a series of interviews with people the project. Of course, it would always be preferable to from a number of different industries, including printing, have a greater level of participation, but it was necessary design, fine art and research through a number of to constrain the sample size to a degree, in order to methods and contacts, all who work with and have to contain the scope of the research. communicate colour in some capacity as part of what they do. The interviewees were identified in one of two The survey was distributed through posting the ways. Three were personal recommendations by other automatically generated link on Facebook, the course people who were familiar with my project. The rest blog, my own research blog and through email, were experts that I had become aware of through the as outlined in the proposal. To increase the pool course of my research, who appeared to be particularly of potential respondents the survey link was also expert or specialist in their field or whose work was posted on several online forums and blogs including particularly relevant to my investigation. Collectively Colourlovers and The Mostly Colour Channel. they represent range of diverse professions. There was the potential to extend this research activity to a larger group of people such as architects and eye specialists. However, by confining it to a select group it ensured that the responses retained a relevance to the project. It also helped to maintain the diversity and quality of the different views, avoiding repetition and overlap. FIGURES 91 – 94, CONVERSATIONS ON COLOUR BOOK LAYOUT ITERATIONS

Can you describe your background and current position? Ok, background was, I’ll go though it. Can you describe your background and current position? Ok, background was, I’ll go though it. I originally started in physical testing of textiles, so nothing to do with colour but to do with textiles. I I originally started in physical testing of textiles, so nothing to do with colour but to do with textiles. I worked for a company called English Sewing, which became Coats Sewing Threads, so in sewing worked for a company called English Sewing, which became Coats Sewing Threads, so in sewing thread. And then from there I moved on to work for ICI, which was, quite a, obviously a large thread. And then from there I moved on to work for ICI, which was, quite a, obviously a large company at the time. And I worked in dying, in the laboratory dying then, so, some celluloses; company at the time. And I worked in dying, in the laboratory dying then, so, some celluloses; cotton. After about five years I moved to specialise in colour fastness testing. So, and I sort of stayed cotton. After about five years I moved to specialise in colour fastness testing. So, and I sort of stayed in that side of my career for many, many years. The company changed from ICI to Zeneca. We in that side of my career for many, many years. The company changed from ICI to Zeneca. We became BASF, bought out by. And then we were sold. Well, BASF put its dyestuff business together became BASF, bought out by. And then we were sold. Well, BASF put its dyestuff business together to become Dystar. So I worked for four companies but never actually left. So that was my to become Dystar. So I worked for four companies but never actually left. So that was my background really, in the dyestuff industry. I took a few years out and worked in a college, an FE background really, in the dyestuff industry. I took a few years out and worked in a college, an FE college for a while. And now I work for the Society [of Dyers and Colourists]. I look after two areas college for a while. And now I work for the Society [of Dyers and Colourists]. I look after two areas really. The Colour Index, which is a database, if you like, of colour with some structures and things on really. The Colour Index, which is a database, if you like, of colour with some structures and things on 4 there. And I also get involved with the training side of things. So if company X needs some training I 5 12 there. And I also get involved with the training side of things. So if company X needs some training I 13 help arrange it, find the correct trainer and run the course for them. How did you get involved with help arrange it, find the correct trainer and run the course for them. How did you get involved with the Society? I originally got involved as, because I came on, for a committee, for a colour fastness the Society? I originally got involved as, because I came on, for a committee, for a colour fastness committee. Because many years ago, the fastness committee as it is now, which is the BSI [British committee. Because many years ago, the fastness committee as it is now, which is the BSI [British Karen Skorski works as a Colour Index and Standards Institute] Committee used to be a textiles committee run by the Society. And my Standards Institute] Committee used to be a textiles committee run by the Society. And my Training Officer for the Society of Dyers predecessor at work was retiring and I was asked to come on. And at the time you had to be, predecessor at work was retiring and I was asked to come on. And at the time you had to be, and Colourists, based in Bradford, West needed to be a member. I became a member in 1988. I joined the committees and I have been there needed to be a member. I became a member in 1988. I joined the committees and I have been there ever since really. So even though I didn’t work for the society I was involved. So are you involved ever since really. So even though I didn’t work for the society I was involved. So are you involved Yorkshire, but has had a long career in the with communicating colour in your current role? Not actually communicating colour, as such. I with communicating colour in your current role? Not actually communicating colour, as such. I textiles and the dye industry. Over the years deal with colour, from the colour index side. And I will do some with the training side, so I will get deal with colour, from the colour index side. And I will do some with the training side, so I will get she has been involved in textile testing, involved with explaining about what kinds of things the trainers are going to talk about. But I don’t involved with explaining about what kinds of things the trainers are going to talk about. But I don’t The dying and also specialises in colour fastness. actually do it in my day-to-day job. And do you have to make judgements about or describe The actually do it in my day-to-day job. And do you have to make judgements about or describe Previously working for ICI and Zeneca and colour as a part of that? Not so much now but I have done over the years. Because I have to colour as a part of that? Not so much now but I have done over the years. Because I have to Dyer describe whether it’s a bluish red or a yellowish red. Because from a dyestuff manufacturers point of Dyer describe whether it’s a bluish red or a yellowish red. Because from a dyestuff manufacturers point of as it was taken over by BASF and finally view it’s very important to be able to describe the colour. Do you think you are good at talking view it’s very important to be able to describe the colour. Do you think you are good at talking became Dystar, Karen became involved with about colours then? Do I think I am good? It’s one of those things you just do as a natural thing, it’s about colours then? Do I think I am good? It’s one of those things you just do as a natural thing, it’s the SDC in the late 1980s through joining a bit like, it’s a bit like having a language, I suppose. It’s just a different language that you learn to a bit like, it’s a bit like having a language, I suppose. It’s just a different language that you learn to as a member of a technical committee. She speak and communicate. And do you ever struggle to describe colours or to articulate speak and communicate. And do you ever struggle to describe colours or to articulate has since become an employee and now precisely what colour something is? I wouldn’t struggle with somebody who had the same precisely what colour something is? I wouldn’t struggle with somebody who had the same expertise as me. So I could say to somebody, it’s a bluish red, if I’m using that as an example. But expertise as me. So I could say to somebody, it’s a bluish red, if I’m using that as an example. But manages the Society’s Colour Index and somebody who has no experience of that, then you have to try and describe it in another way. And somebody who has no experience of that, then you have to try and describe it in another way. And facilitates their training courses. I was able to that’s when it becomes a bit more difficult. So do you think in general other people are good at that’s when it becomes a bit more difficult. So do you think in general other people are good at speck to Karen about her work with colour describing colour or have a good vocabulary of colour names? No, I think there’s so many. I describing colour or have a good vocabulary of colour names? No, I think there’s so many. I during my visit to the SDC. mean, we were in one of the training courses the other week and I forget how many thousand Karen Skorski works as a Colour Index and Training Officer for the mean, we were in one of the training courses the other week and I forget how many thousand colours that she said there were. Think most people wouldn’t be able to describe those kind of colours that she said there were. Think most people wouldn’t be able to describe those kind of colours. Most people, if you said to them ‘red’ they would think, maybe of a pillar-box red. That’s Society of Dyers and Colourists, based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, colours. Most people, if you said to them ‘red’ they would think, maybe of a pillar-box red. That’s probably what they would visualise in their mind, I guess. Something bright... red. But they wouldn’t but has had a long career in the textiles and the dye industry. Over probably what they would visualise in their mind, I guess. Something bright... red. But they wouldn’t think of that red being different , different depths, going down to a pink. And do you think of that red being different shades of red, different depths, going down to a pink. And do you ever have difficulty trying to imagine a colour that someone else is describing?Again, if the years she has been involved in textile testing, dying and also ever have difficulty trying to imagine a colour that someone else is describing?Again, if they’re not trained yes, it can be difficult because what they think, if somebody said to you, I don’t specialises in colour fastness. Previously working for ICI and Zeneca they’re not trained yes, it can be difficult because what they think, if somebody said to you, I don’t know, like a pink, it might sound like ‘oh yeah I can imagine a salmon pink’. But what they know, like a salmon pink, it might sound like ‘oh yeah I can imagine a salmon pink’. But what they think is a salmon pink and what you think... Has working with colour changed the way you talk and as it was taken over by BASF and finally became Dystar, Karen think is a salmon pink and what you think... Has working with colour changed the way you talk about it and express it? Definitely. I think it changes your whole perspective on colour because, became involved with the SDC in the late 1980s through joining about it and express it? Definitely. I think it changes your whole perspective on colour because, even things like at home. If you’re matching something or doing something it will annoy me if it even things like at home. If you’re matching something or doing something it will annoy me if it doesn’t, because it’s just something that you do automatically. Do you think that there are enough as a member of a technical committee. She has since become doesn’t, because it’s just something that you do automatically. Do you think that there are enough names for colours or words to describe colour, or do think that there are too many? I don’t an employee and now manages the Society’s Colour Index and names for colours or words to describe colour, or do think that there are too many? I don’t know about too many, I don’t think we could ever have too many but it’s just, it’s a difficult one to know about too many, I don’t think we could ever have too many but it’s just, it’s a difficult one to answer, I think that we need to have good descriptors for colour. But I think people have to facilitates their training courses. I was able to speck to Karen about answer, I think that we need to have good descriptors for colour. But I think people have to understand what those descriptors are. And I think the more you have, the more complicated it her work with colour during my visit to the SDC. understand what those descriptors are. And I think the more you have, the more complicated it would become for somebody to understand the differences. Do you ever use other systems or would become for somebody to understand the differences. Do you ever use other systems or

Can you describe your background and current position? Can you describe your background and current position?

Ok, background was, I’ll go though it. I originally started in physical testing of Ok, background was, I’ll go though it. I originally started in physical testing of textiles, so nothing to do with colour but to do with textiles. I worked for a company textiles, so nothing to do with colour but to do with textiles. I worked for a company called English Sewing, which became Coats Sewing Threads, so in sewing thread. called English Sewing, which became Coats Sewing Threads, so in sewing thread. And then from there I moved on to work for ICI, which was, quite a, obviously a And then from there I moved on to work for ICI, which was, quite a, obviously a large company at the time. And I worked in dying, in the laboratory dying then, large company at the time. And I worked in dying, in the laboratory dying then, so, some celluloses; cotton. After about five years I moved to specialise in colour so, some celluloses; cotton. After about five years I moved to specialise in colour fastness testing. So, and I sort of stayed in that side of my career for many, many Karen Skorski works as a Colour fastness testing. So, and I sort of stayed in that side of my career for many, many The years. The company changed from ICI to Zeneca. We became BASF, bought out by. The years. The company changed from ICI to Zeneca. We became BASF, bought out by. And then we were sold. Well, BASF put its dyestuff business together to become Index and Training Officer for the And then we were sold. Well, BASF put its dyestuff business together to become Dyer Dystar. So I worked for four companies but never actually left. So that was my Dyer Society of Dyers and Colourists, based Dystar. So I worked for four companies but never actually left. So that was my background really, in the dyestuff industry. I took a few years out and worked in background really, in the dyestuff industry. I took a few years out and worked in a college, an FE college for a while. And now I work for the Society [of Dyers and in Bradford, West Yorkshire, but has a college, an FE college for a while. And now I work for the Society [of Dyers and Colourists]. I look after two areas really. The Colour Index, which is a database, if Colourists]. I look after two areas really. The Colour Index, which is a database, if you like, of colour with some structures and things on there. And I also get involved had a long career in the textiles and you like, of colour with some structures and things on there. And I also get involved with the training side of things. So if company X needs some training I help arrange the dye industry. Over the years she with the training side of things. So if company X needs some training I help arrange it, find the correct trainer and run the course for them. it, find the correct trainer and run the course for them. has been involved in textile testing, How did you get involved with the Society? dying and also specialises in colour How did you get involved with the Society?

I originally got involved as, because I came on, for a committee, for a colour fastness. Previously working for ICI I originally got involved as, because I came on, for a committee, for a colour fastness committee. Because many years ago, the fastness committee as it is fastness committee. Because many years ago, the fastness committee as it is now, which is the BSI [British Standards Institute] Committee used to be a textiles and Zeneca and as it was taken over now, which is the BSI [British Standards Institute] Committee used to be a textiles committee run by the Society. And my predecessor at work was retiring and I by BASF and finally became Dystar, committee run by the Society. And my predecessor at work was retiring and I was asked to come on. And at the time you had to be, needed to be a member. was asked to come on. And at the time you had to be, needed to be a member. I became a member in 1988. I joined the committees and I have been there ever Karen became involved with the SDC I became a member in 1988. I joined the committees and I have been there ever since really. So even though I didn’t work for the society I was involved. in the late 1980s through joining as a since really. So even though I didn’t work for the society I was involved. Karen Skorski works as a Colour Index and Training Officer for the member of a technical committee. She Society of Dyers and Colourists, based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, So are you involved with communicating colour in your current role? has since become an employee and So are you involved with communicating colour in your current role? but has had a long career in the textiles and the dye industry. Over now manages the Society’s Colour the years she has been involved in textile testing, dying and also Not actually communicating colour, as such. I deal with colour, from the colour Not actually communicating colour, as such. I deal with colour, from the colour index side. And I will do some with the training side, so I will get involved with Index and facilitates their training index side. And I will do some with the training side, so I will get involved with specialises in colour fastness. Previously working for ICI and Zeneca explaining about what kinds of things the trainers are going to talk about. But I explaining about what kinds of things the trainers are going to talk about. But I don’t actually do it in my day-to-day job. courses. I was able to speck to Karen don’t actually do it in my day-to-day job. and as it was taken over by BASF and finally became Dystar, Karen about her work with colour during my became involved with the SDC in the late 1980s through joining And do you have to make judgements about or describe colour as a part of that? And do you have to make judgements about or describe colour as a part of that? visit to the SDC. as a member of a technical committee. She has since become Not so much now but I have done over the years. Because I have to describe Not so much now but I have done over the years. Because I have to describe whether it’s a bluish red or a yellowish red. Because from a dyestuff manufacturers whether it’s a bluish red or a yellowish red. Because from a dyestuff manufacturers an employee and now manages the Society’s Colour Index and point of view it’s very important to be able to describe the colour. point of view it’s very important to be able to describe the colour. facilitates their training courses. I was able to speck to Karen about her work with colour during my visit to the SDC. Do you think you are good at talking about colours then? Do you think you are good at talking about colours then?

Do I think I am good? It’s one of those things you just do as a natural thing, it’s a Do I think I am good? It’s one of those things you just do as a natural thing, it’s a bit like, it’s a bit like having a language, I suppose. It’s just a different language that bit like, it’s a bit like having a language, I suppose. It’s just a different language that you learn to speak and communicate. you learn to speak and communicate.

As an extension of this activity I was also able to speak and how that affects both their use of language to to several visually impaired people through a connection describe colour and how the language used to describe to the charity Blind in Greenwich (BIG), including colour affects their understanding of the world. their chief executive Colin Jones. Although this was not directly related to my initial research question it The interviews largely followed the same basic sequence provided a valuable insight into the experience and but with a degree of flexibility so that questioning perception of colour for people with a visual impairment could be tailored and adapted to the responses given. In all of the cases I was able to record the interview by MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

FIGURES 95 – 98, CONVERSATIONS ON COLOUR BOOK SPREADS

Can you describe your background and current position? Can you describe your background and what you do now, professionally? Ok, background was, I’ll go though it. I originally started in physical testing of textiles, so nothing to do with colour but to do with textiles. I worked for a Yep. My background, it’s actually quite unusual. I trained as a company called English Sewing, which became Coats Sewing Threads, so in soldier and spent many years in the army. And then, for various sewing thread. And then from there I moved on to work for ICI, which was, quite reasons decided to leave. And I discovered, or I knew that I really a, obviously a large company at the time. And I worked in dying, in the laboratory The wasn’t equipped for anything outside of the army. I worked briefly The dying then, so, some celluloses; cotton. After about five years I moved to specialise for an art dealer in Bond Street, because I know quite a bit about in colour fastness testing. So, and I sort of stayed in that side of my career for many, Historical early twentieth century British art. And then, having just married Dyer many years. The company changed from ICI to Zeneca. We became BASF, bought and needing to earn some money I asked my father. I mean I knew out by. And then we were sold. Well, BASF put its dyestuff business together to Analyst my father ran the shop. He started a shop; I didn’t really know become Dystar. So I worked for four companies but never actually left. So that was what he did because I had no interest in it. my background really, in the dyestuff industry. I took a few years out and worked in a college, an FE college for a while. And now I work for the Society [of Dyers and But I joined him and within a very short time, I discovered that Colourists]. I look after two areas really. The Colour Index, which is a database, if actually, not all of it, but a major part of what he did was really you like, of colour with some structures and things on there. And I also get involved very interesting. And that was in particular, matching colours, with the training side of things. So if company X needs some training I help arrange talking to people about colour, choosing colours and that, that it, find the correct trainer and run the course for them. kind of thing. And within a short time of starting working with him, this was about 1980-81, I became aware of a, sort of, trend How did you get involved with the Society? almost, that people would come in and they would ask me for advice about the sort of colours that might have been used in an I originally got involved as, because I came on, for a committee, for a colour eighteenth century house. And I realised that I had no more idea Karen Skorski works as a Colour Index and Training fastness committee. Because many years ago, the fastness committee as it is Patrick Baty has been the owner of Papers and Paints, a than they did. But I thought, well, it’s actually quite an interesting now, which is the BSI [British Standards Institute] Committee used to be a textiles subject, or potentially an interesting subject, so I’ll set out to find Officer for the Society of Dyers and Colourists, based committee run by the Society. And my predecessor at work was retiring and I well respected specialist paint shop in Chelsea, London, out. And I started to do some fairly basic research. I used to go was asked to come on. And at the time you had to be, needed to be a member. along, at the weekends, Saturday at least, to the National Art in Bradford, West Yorkshire, but has had a long career I became a member in 1988. I joined the committees and I have been there ever for twenty-five years. Having built on the experience of library at the V&A and then in the evenings I’d go to either the since really. So even though I didn’t work for the society I was involved. old British Museum, the reading room, the round reading room, in the textiles and the dye industry. Over the years she his father, Robert Baty, who founded the business and or otherwise to the RIBA library. And I started to hoover up all the early works to do with colour and paint and house painting, has been involved in textile testing, dying and also So are you involved with communicating colour in your current role? completed a research degree on the paints and materials in particular. And that went on and on and then I thought, well, specialises in colour fastness. Previously working for ICI in those days, joining the army was a bit different and you didn’t Not actually communicating colour, as such. I deal with colour, from the colour used by seventeenth and eighteenth century house normally go to university as well, I went to Sandhurst. So I thought and Zeneca and as it was taken over by BASF and finally index side. And I will do some with the training side, so I will get involved with builders, Patrick now specialises in colour matching paint well, I really need to, sort of, test my level of knowledge and I explaining about what kinds of things the trainers are going to talk about. But I want to be directed. became Dystar, Karen became involved with the SDC in don’t actually do it in my day-to-day job. and colour for historic buildings, and has been involved And about the same time, about ‘82. No, I supposed this would the late 1980s through joining as a member of a technical in creating heritage ranges for a number of consumer have been much later, the end of the eighties, having slowly been And do you have to make judgements about or describe learning the business from my father and learning about tubes of committee. She has since become an employee and now colour as a part of that? brands. The business was also awarded a Royal Warrant artist’s oil colour, hearing and reading about things like Prussian Blue and French Ultramarine, that kind of thing. I was reading the manages the Society’s Colour Index and facilitates their Not so much now but I have done over the years. Because I by the Queen in 2007. I was able to meet with Patrick at Sunday papers and I saw that the, as it was then, the Polytechnic have to describe whether it’s a bluish red or a yellowish red. of East London had a new course. And you could write your own training courses. I was able to speck to Karen about her Because from a dyestuff manufacturers point of view it’s very Chelsea Arts Club to discuss his experiences with colour degree course. If you could find somebody who could supervise important to be able to describe the colour. you, and if they felt that it was a subject worthy of academic work with colour during my visit to the SDC. and how this has shaped how he talks about it. research then they’d support you. So I went along and there were about seven of us, all looking at completely different subjects, Do you think you are good at talking about colours then? absolutely different. And most of us were mature students, people who had been doing other things and wanted to retrain. Do I think I am good? It’s one of those things you just do as a natural thing, it’s a bit like, it’s a bit like having a language, I suppose. It’s just a And I set out to look at The House Painter: his methods and different language that you learn to speak and communicate. materials from the 1650s to 1850, and was allocated a very nice

So can you describe your background and your current professional system on it. As to using colour terms, I try to avoid that, and I never, never title my works So you think that the level of colour vocabulary is quite poor? David Batchelor has used colour as a prominent practise? with colour names. I never call it blue this or red that. And the reason I try to avoid colour, feature of his work for many years. He has exhibited using colour names, I mean even just talking with my assistant about it is that, as I’ve said Yeah, it is. But it’s not just poor that we are bad at it. It’s poor because I think it’s a Yes, well I’m an artist and I studied, I mean I knew when I was at school I was going many times, the range of colours that are at my disposal in the studio is several thousand, limit of language. Or everyone’s poor at it. I really. And there’s, obviously, there’s his brightly coloured trademark sculptures and light to do art. Not, necessarily because I was the very best of the lot but because it just from paint pots and plexiglass strips, then we have really a very limited range of colour been a lot of work about the relationship between language and colour which definitely was the cooler activity than the other ones. I didn’t go, become an artist names. And there’s the basic eleven, the eleven basic colour terms, that Berlin and Kay I think is deeply fascinating because it, because it reminds us how limited our installations all over the world. Recent works include when I left school. I went to college, I actually then taught for quite a long time and talked about back in the early sixties. So there’s always, for me that huge gap between what vocabularies can be sometimes. began to write about art, criticism and kind of, art historical kind of stuff. And, but, we can experience in terms of colour and what we can say about it. And I want the work to Big Rock Candy Fountain, commissioned by Islington for the last ten, ten-fifteen years I’ve been working as an artist, and, pretty much to be about the experience of colour rather than about the name, the colour names. Yes. Is the exclusion of everything else apart from writing. one of your questions what’s your favourite colour? Do you ever have difficulty trying to imagine what colour Council as a temporary site specific commission which someone else is talking about? resided above Archway tube station. His work also And how are you involved with colour in what you do? It is, it’s at the end. Well yeah, at least in some effect it’s very easy, because if someone said well you know, that I had a nice red apple or, you featured in the contemporary sculpture group show, Well, [laughs] it was, it was to my astonishment its now twenty years ago that I Ok I knew it would be, it always is [laughs]. know, you think you... I don’t know what you actually have in your first made a piece of work with colour. And if you saw my talk at Byam Shaw [part mind, I mean, there’s always a sort of schematic image that will do ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ at the Saatchi Gallery. of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design] you know that before that I but of course you have no way of knowing the real character of wasn’t using it. And I started using it almost by accident, just as a way of trying to Do you have to communicate or talk about colour to other people in that red, none at all. As well as sculpture he has written and edited a handful figure out a different problem, which wasn’t a colour problem. But the minute I did what you do? start using it, which was in three-dimensional work rather than painting, it kind of of books, most notably Chromaphobia, an analysis and dawned on me very quickly that there was sort of, there was a general absence of Yes, quite a lot. I mean, mostly in terms of, there would be two different Has working with colour changed the way you talk about it then? colour in contemporary art, in London at the time. You have to be quite specific ways. One will be, if you like, doing talks at colleges and so forth and commentary about the marginalisation and I just thought that was strange. I said why? Why is that? I kind of thought that talking with you now. But that’s, in a way, that’s not quite talking about Yeah, I mean totally. It’s probably encouraged me to talk about it a bit less and suspicion of colour in the history it might give me something to think about for a little bit, and yeah, give me a bit of colour, that’s talking about ideas about colour. So it’s, and I’ve always said and to work with it. It’s certainly, I mean, working with it now for, as I said space to work in, that other people weren’t working in. And what’s really surprising, that the book Chromaphobia, that I published now ten, eleven years ago. twenty years, it’s taught me how extraordinarily complex colour is. But at of Western fine art and culture. I is that, you know, twenty years later I’m still, still working on it. That’s not a book about colour, it’s a book about ideas about colour so... the same time, it’s a completely common, everyday, human experience. But I do often have to, you know, practically in the studio, communicate And I like that relationship between the ordinariness of colour experience visited David at his studio in East things about colour. And what I usually do is take a swatch, is to use a and the extraordinary complexity of it at the same time. And I love sample. And you can match samples, in a way that words, fail you. Words the idea that everyone, everyone has the idea, has views about colour, London to speak to him about his So you’re still doing pieces that are focussed on colour then? simply can’t do that detail of, work at that level of specificity. everyone does and they always want to tell you them as well. And yet no one really understands, not even scientists, really understand where it is in views on colour and the pitfalls of Almost everything I do has a basis in colour. And it’s not the only the world. thing it’s about, it’s also about, the city, the street, about found using language to communicate it, materials, about modernity and stuff. It’s about the relationship How good are you at talking about colour? And do you ever struggle to describe colours precisely? between painting and sculpture, so it’s about a lot of stuff. And Are you more aware of colours and how you describe them since you something he discusses in his own book. because I’ve done so much stuff with colour and on colour, even have worked with them a lot? when I do something, which is just white, it’s still seen as colourful. I’m brilliant at talking about colour, or talking about the ideas about colour. Which it is, because it’s about the colour white, which is one of I’m as bad as everyone else at finding descriptive terms for particular Absolutely. You kind of hope, when you are doing art of any kind that that the great, as great, as, complex a colour as any other. I’m sort of colours, no I’m rubbish at it. And I think that most people write very badly enables you to really focus in on one or other aspect of, you know, the stuck with it now I think. about colour, colours. When they are trying to evoke a particular colour. visual world or at least that which you are involved with. And I think with People tend to write very badly. It gets all syrupy and poetic and, so no, any kind of practise, the more you focus and the more you attend to it the I’m really bad at that, so I find ways of avoiding it. more it opens up. So do you have to make judgements about or describe colours in what you do now?

So how good do you think other people are at talking about colour? They’re Well I make judgements about colours all the time. In the studio, ‘does this work?’ Is the as bad as me [laughs]. I can’t think of anyone, I wish I could say, oh yeah I know best, there’s a stack of boxes here, [gestures to a part finishes sculpture to his left] which someone who just has a way of pinpointing it. My favourite novel which uses colour So do you think there are enough names for colours? is a work I am making for a collector and I’ve got to, I’ve got to colour it in basically. So descriptions is Thomas Pynchon’s, Gravity’s Rainbow, where he invents these colour No! [Laughs] Well, I mean yes and no. I mean yes because I don’t think if you had any more I’m constantly asking myself, does this Perspex work here or not? And you try it and if it terms like, I think ‘Drowned Man Green’ as one of the really great colour terms. names it would actually help very much. No, in that they’ll never be enough names to holds you attention you go ‘yeah’ and if not you try something else. So it’s always done That’s, good, but... Roland Barthes was quite good at colour terms, at least, what match, the amount, the quantity of colours that we can perceive. empirically, I don’t have any kind of system or theory for how colours should go next to each he called Warhol’s colour, a very particular, kind of chemical colour, which I thought other. And I don’t believe that it is possible. I think, I think you loose a lot if you impose a was good. But again, that’s fairly general rather than specific.

dictaphone and then transcribe the dialogue, for which As a body of work the interviews act as both a piece of I consulted guidelines on interview transcription, to research in their own right and as valuable supporting compile the eventual document. material for this report and the rest of the project. The transcripts were presented as a book, iterations of the These lengthier interviews with colour experts and layout can be seen in Figures 91–94, while examples of specialists were designed to contrast with the shorter, the final design are shown above in Figures 95–98. more structured questioning and wider public participation, used for the survey.

Development of Outputs

MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Development of Outputs

This section of the report describes key stages in the development of the final outcome. It explains how research for and feedback about the project continued to inform the creation of an output and how the structure of the body of work presented relates to the research question.

From the outset, I had specified in the proposal for the of content that would distinguish a dictionary of colour project that the outcomes of the research would be produced as an output for this project, from those that print based. This was established this early on because already existed. although I felt that certain aspects of the research might lend themselves to a multimedia format quite To have created a dictionary of colour names would successfully, I lacked the technical skill to execute an have also required definitive decisions on matching outcome of that nature to any desirable level of quality. I colour names with colour swatches. It was apparent from had speculated in the proposal that the outcome would the background research for the project that it would likely take the form of a book or posters and could have been impossible to be completely objective in this potentially be a dictionary or a series of explorations decision making process, as we all see colour slightly that came together to form a collection. differently. Colour perception and therefore naming is, by its very nature, highly subjective. In addition to As the initial background research progressed it became this, to produce a dictionary that was a viable reference apparent that a dictionary was not the most suitable tool would have required greater control and accuracy medium for an output. As part of the investigation I had over colour reproduction than was possible within the discovered a number of existing hard copy dictionaries constraints of the project. As a result of these factors it such as Maerz & Paul A Dictionary of Colour, first was obvious that a dictionary of colour would not have published in 1930 and Ian Paterson’s more recent, A been a satisfactory outcome for the project. Dictionary of Colour from 2003. During my meeting with them, the artists Rob and Nick Carter also revealed they However, the research conducted in preparation for were in the process of creating their own dictionary of the Major Project and in the initial stages had shown colour as an attempt to update the Maerz & Paul 1930 that there were a number of ways that the relationship version with modern printing techniques. I had also between colour and language could be examined. As come across a number of online colour dictionaries, described in the previous section these investigations many of which were technical colour reference libraries allowed me to explore a number of research that gave samples as HEX codes or RGB values. From methodologies and proved to be useful exercises in this research it was clear that there was little in terms themselves. FIGURES 99 – 102, DEVELOPMENT OF OUTCOMES – SURVEY RESULTS

Nationality Language Viewing Conditions Light Sources

What is your Nationality? Is English your first language? Sources and quantity of ambient light, type of Type of Light Source Top 10 Nationalities Represented computer and screen can all affect how we perceive colours in the digital realm. Participants were all 1. British/English asked a series of straightforward questions about 2. American how they viewed the survey in order to allow for NATURAL DAYLIGHT 3. French 45 these factors. FLUORESCENT BULBS 36 4 Portuguese INCANDESCENT BULBS 5. Australian respondents did not have OTHER English as a first language. DON’T KNOW Different nationalities 6. Brazilian The way we see colour is largely dependent on the In addition to the quantity and sources of light, quality of light that we view it in. The brightness and participants were also asked what type of computer took part in the survey. 7. Scottish temperature of different light sources can vary widely, and screen they viewed the survey on. This was to take colours viewed in natural daylight will often look into account the fact that different types of screens 8. German different under energy saving or compact fluorescent have slightly different colour , affecting the way lights, for example. This phenomenon is known as colours are rendered. It would have been possible to 9. Greek Top 10 Languages Represented . In order to allow for this discrepancy I extend this line of questioning to ask participants about 10. Japanese asked participants some multiple-choice questions the brightness and colour calibration of their monitors, YES about the conditions they viewed the survey in. however for the purposes of this project that level of Quantity of Light 1. Portuguese detail seemed unnecessary. NO Just over half of respondents viewed the survey in 2. French artificial light, with an almost equal number split between fluorescent and incandescent sources. The 3. German remaining participants viewed the survey in natural daylight, with just under two thirds reporting the light 4 Greek as having medium brightness. 19% of participants said BRIGHT 5. Spanish that they had taken the survey in dim light, while 17% said described their light source as bright. This variation MEDIUM 6. Welsh is but one of the factors that could have affected how 65% respondents perceived the colour samples in the final DIM 26 7. Arabic sections of the survey. Although it was impossible to control these variables in the process of conducting the ENGLISH/BRITISH of respondents Different languages were 8. Chinese/Cantonese survey, it is a greater reflection of how we experience colour in everyday life, where there is potentially even OTHER identified themselves represented in the survey. 9. Japanese greater variability in the sources and quality of the light 10. Polish that surrounds us. AMERICAN as British or English.

At the stage of the mid-way crit there was no clear In order to create a consistently visual identity I chose strategy for directing the body of work already to use a combination of two different typefaces across produced towards a considered output. The feedback the project. Avenir, the sans serif and more geometric received indicated that none of the individual of the two was a reflection of the scientific and rational investigations has sufficient potential to generate a side of colour. Whereas Archer, the serif typeface, was strong outcome. After reflecting on the comments used to identify with the personal and sometimes poetic and the development of the project, it was evident way language is used to describe colour. A circle was that gathering input from other people to create a also included as a graphic device to unify the different body of contributions would demonstrate the diversity components, due to its close association with the colour of our individual approaches to colour naming. This wheel, organisation of the spectrum and representations could provide an interesting and engaging output and of additive and subtractive colour models. response to the research question. The data collected through the responses to the survey The strategies used to gather data and information for provided ample content for an outcome to the project. this aspect of the project included the interviews and The analysis and results are discussed in detail in the survey described in more detail in the previous section. book created for the output. Through this document I was able to present visual, written and statistical As the research developed, I felt it necessary to develop analysis of the data. The survey produced some a means of maintaining continuity and familiarity unexpected results, including several significant biases throughout the different aspects of the project and to in the demographic composition of the sample. Due present a visual coherent body of work for submission. to this, the decision was made to disregard the original It became clear that the different investigations would plans to compare the responses by gender, age and be best presented as supporting material in the form of language. Despite this change there was a great deal of a series of books, with the main outcome being a book information to present. and series of posters that collated and presented the results of the survey. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Colour Disagreements Comments Colour Vocabulary How many colours can you name?

The types of objects disagreed Was the disagreement resolved “It was obviously not black. It just “Anthracite, Asphalt, Bitter blue, China red, Daytona yellow, Top 10 Colours Listed about: in any way? wasn’t. Black’s not hard to identify. Dun, Eating room red, Elephant grey, Emeraldine, Emperor purple, Glaucous, Green eyes colour, Greige, Heliotrope, Henna, 1. Orange It wasn’t black.” Hessian, Lamppost black, Limoncello, Macchiato, Mimosa, = Yellow “There were several people in that argument, National Trust green, Pantone 035 C, Pantone 877 C, Phosphoric green, Railings, River gold, Rope, Rubine, Sanguine, Shrimp, 3. Red split about half for green and half for brown. 542 Thalo blue, Thalo green, Tourmaline, Tulip, Woad, Yoke.” I had a similar discussion about that same 4 Green colour a few years later with someone else.” individual colours 5. Blue were named by 6. Purple In order to appreciate the size of participants’ colour Spelling was an issue in some cases, with the word 7. Pink “We then discovered my friend was colour blind” vocabulary, and to encourage them to think about fuchsia being misspelled more frequently than it was respondents to the 8. Black colour terms, respondents were asked to spend a few spelled correctly. Consequently, for the purposes of minutes naming as many colours as they could think of. analysis and consistency all obvious mistakes have been 9. Brown The amount of colour terms listed varied considerably, corrected and ‘grey/gray’ variations were standardised survey. ranging from 7 to 100. As well as the extent of a to ‘grey’. 10. Grey “Sometimes it is difficult to know when participant’s colour vocabulary, a number of factors could have contributed to this disparity including, the Participants were also asked to name colour terms that one colour ends and another begins - at total amount of time spent on the task, the amount of they did not understand, meaning they were unclear what point does red become orange? etc” effort applied, whether participants had any prompts as to what particular shade or hue a word referred or assistance and the ability to recall colour names from to. A total of 48 different colour terms were listed by CLOTHING COLOUR YES memory. Overall, the average number of colours named respondents including tawny, mauve, taupe and ecru. PAINT COLOUR NO was 26, at the lower end of the scale, representing a Unsurprisingly the most commonly misunderstood term 61% of participants “Blue/green colours often lead to colour vocabulary of just over twice the number of basic was puce, a result that was also reflected in the colour CAR COLOUR AGREED TO DISAGREE colour terms in English. In comparison, a combined total term interpretation section of the survey. began their list with the disagreement between people.” of 542 unique colour terms were listed by respondents, SOFT FURNISHINGS MEASURED IT/LOOKED IT UP creating an incredibly rich and diverse body of colour To examine how we often improvise descriptions of 26 colour red. names. The most unusual colour terms have been colours, respondents were asked to give examples of BOUNDARIES BETWEEN COLOURS “There was a large group of us – over 10, perhaps 20 in this highlighted above, however the full list can be found informal colour terms they might use in conversation was the average number OTHER argument at one point. Both names refer to the same hex code overleaf. All of the top ten most frequently listed names or everyday situations. The most descriptive are were basic colour terms; the only one not included was listed overleaf to represent the diversity of how we of colours named by in the html specification.” white. Nearly two-thirds of participants began their list communicate colours. with the term red, this may have been due to the colour participants, the lowest Fuchsia, turquoise and burgundy being a prominent primary or that it was used as an amount being 7 and the example in the survey question. were the colour names most “Perception is in the eye of the beholder...” highest was 100. commonly misspelled in the survey.

The circle used as a graphic device throughout the As colour management, consistency and reproduction project was modified into a chart and used consistently can be an issue in any design scheme, regardless of the throughout the document it allows a straightforward content, it was evident from the outset that this was an comparison of the results. This presentation technique especially important consideration for the execution of was most successful visually, when used to present the any design outcomes for this project. However, in the final section of the results, where participants were proposal for this project I stated that it was something asked to choose swatches from a chart in response to a that it was not something I would concentrate on at the colour name. As this method was both visually appealing expense of research on colour naming. To address the and easy to understand the charts were combined into issue from the outset, all images, photographs, scanned a set of three posters (Figures 119–121), in accordance documents and files were immediately assigned the with the groups of terms used in the survey questions. same ICC colour profile and colour management was synchronised across all Adobe CS programmes The book produced from the survey results was using Adobe Bridge. All of the books were printed designed to be presented as a set with the visual using the same Konica Minolta CPP 650 machine at summary and this report, but could also be viewed Blissetts in West London on coated matt stock, creating independently or in conjunction with the posters. consistency across all of the documents. Printing tests Spreads from the final outcome are shown on this on three different papers stocks were carried out with and the following pages in Figures 99–118. The set of both the covers and several text pages prior to the main separate colour and language investigations was then print run to obtain the best result. presented as supporting material, to demonstrate other methods of exploring the research question. FIGURES 103 – 110, DEVELOPMENT OF OUTCOMES – SURVEY RESULTS

A lighter shade of pale, , Acid yellow, Aha, , Alabaster, Alizarin crimson, Almond white, Almond, Dark red, Dark red, Dark red, Darkish purple/red, Reddish brown, Sexy deep red, Dark Bright pinkish orange, Red-pink, Pinky peach, Orange/peach, , Bright orangey Alpine, Amethyst, Anthracite, Apple, Apple green, Apple red, Apple white, , Aqua, Aqua blue, Aqua-green, Aquamarine, “Ox blood red, Liver pink, Bubblegum Pink, Pepto Bismol, Hello Aquamarine blue, Arctic white, Army green, Ash, Asha, Asphalt, Aubergine, Auburn, , Azure blue, , Baby green, red purple, Intense purple red, Rich red, Rich purpley red with bit of brown, Purple- peachy, Deep green blue, Fresh scarlet white yellow mix, Bright pick-peach, Pale pink with Baby pink, Banana, Banana yellow, Barbie pink, Barn red, Battleship grey, Beech, Beetroot, Beige, Berry red, Berry, Bitter blue, Kitty pink, Germoline pink, Dead skin pink, Flesh coloured, brown, Rich dark magenta and deep red, Brown, Dark red-brown, Purple, Dark red, Deep hint of orange similar to puce but softer, Light blue, Soft pale pink with a little soft orange, Black, Black brownish, Blonde, Blood orange, Blood red, Blossom pink, Blue, Blue azure, Blue black, Blue green, Blue grey, Blue- violet, Bluebell, Blueberry, Blur colour, Blush, Bone White, Bone, Bordeaux, Bottle green, Brass, Brick red, Brick, Bricky, Bright blue, Macaroon coloured, Pink champagne, Shrimp-pink, red, purple tone, Red-purple, Dark red, Close to brown, Red, Purpley brown, Brown red Orangey yellow, Light bright orange-red, Pink, Orangey red, Bright green and blue, Pale Bright green, Bright grey, Bright orange, Bright pink, Bright purple, Bright red, Bright yellow, Brilliant-white, , purple, Dark red, Dark reddy brown, Dark brown/red, Brown, Red, Dark purple/brown, apricot/pink, Between pink and orange, Something in between red and orange, Bright, In , Brown, Brunette, Bubblegum pink, Buff, Burgundy, Burgundy red, Burnt Ash, Burnt orange, Burnt sienna, Burnt Umber, coloured, Bloodshot, Candy apple red, Lipstick red, Ketchup Butter yellow, Butterscotch, Cadmium, Cadmium red, Cadmium red light, Cadmium Yellow, Camel, Canary yellow, Candy, Candy Red, Dark red/brown, Dark red, Brown, Purple, Deep purple-red, Purple, Dark red, Dark between orange and pink, Blue green kind of, Light red/orange, Bright pinky red, Bright floss pink, Cappuccino, Caramel, , Carmine red, Carnation pink, Carrot, Cayenne, Celadon, Cerise, Cerulean, Cerulean red, Red bus, red, Fire-engine red, Pillar box red, blue, Champagne, Charcoal, Charcoal grey, Chartreuse, Cherry, Cherry red, , China red, Chocolate, Chocolate brown, reddish-brown, Dark red, Rouge, Burn red, Close to green, Red, Deep red/brown, Red/ pink/orange, White - cream mix, Blue, Orange/yellow, Pink/orange, Bright pink/orange/ Christmas green, Chrome yellow, Cinnamon, , yellow, Citrus, Citrus orange, Citrus yellow, Claret, Clear, Cobalt, purple/black, Dark red brown, Purple-red, Red-brown, Dark red/purple, Red, Dark red, red, Whiteish, Orangey-pink, Pink/peach, Orange-pink, White, Shinny white, with shadows , Coffee, Coffee brown, Cool grey, Copper, Copper brown, Coral, Corn, , Cotton candy pink, Cranberry, Flaming red, Indian-red, Dawn orange, Orange as an autumn Cream, Creamy, Crimson, Custard, Cyan, Daffodil, Damson, Dandelion, Dark blue, Dark brown, Dark Chocolate, Dark green, Dark purple, Chestnut, Dark brown, Dark purple red, Deep red, Red-brown, Brown, Dark of really light blue, Orangey-pink, Peachy orange, Blue, Vivid red-orange, Red, Bright pink/ Dark grey, Dark orange, Dark pink, Dark purple, Dark red, Dark tulip, Dark yellow, Day-Glo pink, Daytona yellow, Deep blue, maple leaf, Toxic orange, B&Q orange, Popcorn, Beer colour, red-brown, Red/dark/wine, Brown yellowishy, Deep red/burgundy, Burgundy, Light brown, orange, Red/orange, Orangey pink, Orange-red, Red, Bright orange, Red, Reddish pink, Deep purple, Denim blue, Diamond white, Dove grey, Duck egg blue, Duck egg, Dun, Dusk blue, Dusk grey, Dusky pink, Dust grey, Dusty pink, Earth brown, Eating room red, Eau de nil, Ebony, Ebony black, Ecru, Egg-shell blue, Eggshell, , Elephant Corn coloured, School bus, Selfridge’s yellow, Sunshine yellow, sweet chestnut like, Deep red, Dark red brown, Brown, Purple/red, Dark reddy purple, Light whitey yellow, Pinkish, Deep blue, Bright orange pink, Dark green/blue, Pink-orange, grey, Emerald, Emerald green, Emeraldine, Emperor purple, Fawn, Fern green, Fir green, , Fire orange, Flame- Brown, Deep red, Dark purple red, Deep brownish red, Brown-red, Brown, Purple/red, Bright blue, Tangerine-orange, Orange-pink/bright/warm, Dark orange red, Light pinky/ red, Flesh, Flesh pink, Flesh tone, Fluorescent blue, Fluorescent green, Fluorescent orange, Fluorescent pink, Fluorescent yellow, Banana skin yellow, Butter yellow, Custard-yellow, Sherbet, Foliage green, Forest, , French blue, Fuchsia, Fuchsia pink, Garnet, Ginger, Glaucous, Gold, Golden, Gorgeous grape, Dark red, Rich beep red, Brown, Dark pink, Dark red, Purple and brown, Deep red with orange, Orange red, Warm red, orange, Off white, Shade of red, Red/orange, Salmon Granite, Grape, Graphite grey, Graphite, Grass green, Green, Green blue, Green eyes colour, Green leafy, Green-grey, Greenish Post it note yellow, Limoncello, Dirty blonde, Baby sick yellow, purple, Purple, Dark browny red (like dried blood), Dark reddish purple, Chestnut colour, orange/pink, White, Bright orange red, Bold peach red orange, Pale pink, Red shimmering blue, Greenish grey, Greenish yellow, Greige, Grey, Gunmetal grey, Gunmetal, Hazel, Heather, Heliotrope, Henna, Hessian, Honey, Honey yellow, Honeysuckle, Hookers Green, Hot pink, Hunter’s green, Ice blue, Ice white, , Indian yellow, Indigo, Ink Bogey green, Beech leaf in May, Light green as a young Deep brownish red-violet, Dark, Burgundy red, Bright red, Dark purpley red, Brownish, orange, Blue, Orange/pink, Dull pinky red, Pinky blue, Red, white, and yellow, Light pink, blue, , Iron red, Ivory, Jade, Jasmine, Jet black, Jute, Kelly green, Khaki, Khaki green, Lamppost black, Burgundy-purple, Dark red-brown, Dark browny red, Deep blue-red, Dark dirty red, Bright orange-pink, Pink, Reddy pink with hint of yellow, Orange, Warm/light pink, Pale Latte, Lavender, Lead-colour, Lead, Leaf green, Lemon, Lemon yellow, Light black, Light blue, Light brown, Light green, Light grey, spring leaf, Harrod’s green, Ecto plasma green, Cheese and Light orange, Light pink, Light purple, Light red, Light yellow, Lilac, , Lime Green, Limoncello, , Lipstick red, Brownish red, Brownie purple, Dark brown/red, Browner than claret, Brownish red, Dark pink, Bright orange with a mix of pink, Medium orange-red, Yellow/red/bright, Deep peach, London grey, Macchiato, Magenta, Magnolia, , Mahogany brown, Mandarin, Maple yellow, , Marine, Marine onion green, John Deere green, Christmas green, Invisible- red, Dark red with blue tones, Towards purpley brown, Dark red, Browny purple, Purple/ Pale yellow, Bright orangey pink, Orange meets red - sunset coloured, Almost white cream, blue, Maroon, Mauve, Medium green, Medium grey, Medium orange, Medium pink, Medium purple, Medium red, Medium yellow, Melon, Merlot red, Midnight, , Military red, Military-green, Milk white, Mimosa, Mink, Mint, Mint Green, Mistletoe green, Fortnum and Mason coloured, Crystal blue water blue mix, Dark bluish-red, Dark brown-red, Purple/yellow, Brownish red, Dark bluish red, Bright red-orange, Peachy coloured pink, Warm red-yellow-orange, Warm carrot & orange green, Mocha, Moss, Moss green, Mud, Muddy brown, , Murky brown, Mushroom, Mustard, Mustard yellow, Muted blue, Dark browny-purple, Deep dark red, Dark brown, Deep red colour, Blue and green, Deep mix, Light pink, Orangery pink, Red/orange, Pinky orange, Reddish-pinkish orange, Pale National Trust green, Natural, Navy, , Neon blue, Neon green, Neon pink, Neon red, Neon yellow, Neutral grey, Night blue, Noir, Nude, Nude-pink, Oak brown, Ocean blue, Ocean green, , Ochre tan, Off white, Olive, Olive green, Onyx, Opal, colour, Tropical blue, Commode water blue, Salt and vinegar red, Red blue, Dark red, Dark red, Dark red, Burgundy-purple, Reddish brown, Dark red peachy pink, Clear pinky light orange, Pink, Deep orange/pink, Pinks, Light blue/turquoise, Orange, Orange red, Orange yellow, Orange-fire-red, Orangey red, Orangey yellow, Oyster, Pale blue, Pale green, Pale grey, Pale lemon, Pale orange, Pale pink, Pale red, Pale Yellow, Pantone 035 C, Pantone 877 C, blue, Pastel pink, Payne’s grey, Pea blue, Ikea blue, Chelsea blue, Denim, Jeans blue, Colour of purple, Brown, Deep red, Red, black dark, rich, Purple, Brownish purple red, Dark red, Dull orangey-red, Bright pink-red, Yellow/pink, Bright peachy orange, Pinky red, Light green, Peach, Peacock blue, Pearl, Pearly, Pebble grey, Pepper red, Peppermint green, Peridot green, Periwinkle, Periwinkle blue, nearly purple, Red, Bluish dark red, Dark red, Reddy brown, Reddy brown, Red, Deep bright orange+red, Off-white, Rich bright pinky red, Light orange-red, Orange-red, Sand , Petrol blue, Petrol, Pewter, Phosphoric green, Pillar box red, Pine, Pink, Pink champagne, Pink fuchsia, Pink Raspberry, the night sky, Midnight purple, Black as coal, Black as night, Pistachio, Pistachio green, , Plum, Poppy red, Post box red, , Primrose, Primrose yellow, Prussian blue,Puce, purpley red, Red, Deep red/brown, Dark red, Red white a hint of dark brown/purple, Dull colour, Pink peach orange, White yellow, Orange pink, Orange, Orange red, Light pinkish Pumpkin orange, Purple, Purple-brown, Putty, Racing car green, Racing green, Railings, Raspberry, Raspberry pink, Raw sienna, Winter sea, Asphalt grey coloured, Dolphin grey, Smokey grey, slightly purplish red, White-cream-brown, Deep purple, Strong red, Red, Dark red, Red, red, Pinkish orange, Light orange red, Pearl, Cream, Pink, red, bright, White, Orange pink, Raw umber, Red, Red orange, Red violet, Red wine, Red-brown, Reddish orange, Reflex blue, Regal blue, River gold, Roan, Robin’s egg blue, Rope, Rose, Rose pink, Rouge, , Rubine, Ruby, Ruby red, Russet, Russet orange, Rust, Rust brown, , Sage, Dashboard grey, London grey, Concrete coloured, Pavement Dark red, Dark red, Reddy purple, Dark red, Browny, Purplish red, Red, Intense dark red, Red, Orange, Yellow red, Bright red-orange, Red and orange, Milky cyan, Yellow/orange, Sage green, Salmon, Salmon pink, Sand, Sand brown, Sand yellow, Sandy brown, Sanguine, , Sapphire blue, Scarlet, Sea Dark red purple, Maroon, Muddy reddy purple, Reddy brown, Dark pink purple, Deep Pale pinky orange, Blue, Yellow-brown, Orangey pink, Pinky orangey, Quite bright orangey blue, Sea green, Sea waves green, Sepia, Shell pink, Shocking Pink, Shrimp, Sienna, Silver, Skin, Skin colour, Skin coloured, Sky, Sky coloured, Pebble grey, Diamond white, Timber wolf grey, Dish- blue, Slate, Slate grey, Sliver, Sludge green, Smoke, Smokey, Snot green, Snow white, Snow, Soft pink, Steel, , Steel grey, red, Deep red, Reddy brown, Deep purpley red, Pinky purple, Dark purple, Brownish dark pink, Orange-pink, Orangey pink, Pinky red, Blue, Peach, Light blue, Pale pink, Light blue, Stone, Stone grey, Straw, Strawberry blonde, Strawberry pink, Strawberry red, Sugary, Sunflower yellow, Sunflower, Sunset yellow, water, Dirty dish water, Mucky sea , Donkey-coloured, red, Purple base with a little red and blue thrown in, Reddy brown, Magenta, Purplish Orange pale, Bright red-orange, Red, Blue, Pink, Bright light blue with hint of green, Blue Sunshine yellow, Swamp green, Tan, Tangerine, Taupe, Tawny, Teak, , Terracotta, Terracotta red, Thalo blue, Thalo green, Thistle, Titanium, Toffee, Tomato, Topaz, Tourmaline, Tropical blue, Tulip, Turquoise, Ultramarine, Umber, Vanilla, Venetian red, Mousy brown, Mud-coloured, Muddy brown, Brown as mud, brown, Purple, Deep purple-red, Purplish, Blue, Red, Purple, Red, Reddy brown, Brown, green, Cream, Bright pink, Orangey red, Bright orange pink, Blue green, Light orangey/ Verdigris, Vermillion, Vermillion red, Violet, Violet red, , Walnut brown, Walnut, Warm Grey, Warm red, Warm yellow, Dark red/purple, Dark red, Very similar to burgundy, Very dark red, Yellow, Purple-black, pink, Pale pinky orange, Orangey pink, Sea green, Reddish orange, Off white with a hint of Water green, White, White newspaper colour, Wine, Wine red, Woad, Wood, Yellow, Yellow green, Yellow ochre, Yellow orange, Yellowish green, Yellowish orange, Yellowy green, Yellowy-orange, Yoke. Macchiato, Tobacco, Poo brown, Shit coloured, Sludgy, Puke.” Deep dark red, Deep purpley-red. beige, Pinky orange, Red, Light vivid blue, Red, Pink-orange, Pinky, Blue, Pink, Pink, White cream, Orangey red, Blue, Orange, Dark pink, A red/peach colour - quite strong, Pinky red, Purple-pink, Cyan-orange-yellow, Orangey-pink, Rich pinky orange.

COLOURS NAMED BY RESPONDENTS INFORMAL COLOUR DESCRIPTIONS DESCRIPTIONS OF THE COLOUR TERM MAROON DESCRIPTIONS OF THE COLOUR TERM CORAL

Olive green, Army green, Khaki, Payne’s Grey, Olive green, Swamp green, Dark aquamarine, Turquoise, Turquoise/teal, Turquoise, Teal, Mint, Pale blue, Sky blue, Pale blue, Cerulean blue, Sky blue, Pastel blue, Pale blue, Navy blue, Navy, Dark purple, Midnight blue, Navy blue, Indigo, Sea blue, Khaki, Olive, Khaki, Foliage green, Dark green, Dark leaf green, Moss green, Teal, Aqua, Turquoise, Aqua, Dark turquoise with a dab dark navy blue, Mid blue, Sky blue, Sky blue, Sky blue, Pale cyan, Baby blue, Medium blue, Navy, Navy, Navy blue, Deep blue, Dark purpley blue, Navy, Navy, Navy blue, Khaki- green, Olive, Khaki, Khaki, Forest-green, Khaki, Khaki, Khaki, Moss Turquoise, Turquoise, Turquoise, Teal, Turquoise, Turquoise, Colour of sea Sky blue, Azure blue, Sky blue, Sky blue, Sky blue, Violet blue, Sky blue, Sky Navy blue, Navy, Midnight blue, Navy, Indigo, Navy blue, Royal blue, Dark green, Khaki, Moss green, Black, Khaki, Faded green, Khaki, Leaf green, waves, Turquoise, Teal, Turquoise, Sea blue, Teal, Green-blue, Turquoise, blue, Pastel blue, Sky blue, Cobalt, Blue pyjamas, Blue, Robin’s egg blue, blue, Navy blue, Indigo, Blue dark intense, Royal blue, Ocean blue, Navy blue, Swamp, Khaki, Forest green, Grass/, Olive, Dark olive green Indigo, Teal, Teal, Dark turquoise, Turquoise, Teal, Teal, Turquoise, Light blue, Sky blue, Sea blue, Light blue, Light blue, Sky blue, Sky blue, Blue Navy, Darker grey, Navy, Navy blue, Marine blue, Blue black, Navy blue, and also dirt green, Dark green, Khaki, Leaf green, Dry green, Khaki, Khaki, Turquoise green, Turquoise, Teal, Teal, Turquoise, Sea green, Turquoise, mixed with white, Sky blue, Blue, Cerulean, Sky blue, Light blue, Sky blue, Dark blue, Navy blue, Navy, Navy blue, Navy, Navy blue, Dark purple, Navy, Khaki, Khaki, Forest green, Khaki, Army green, Olive green, Permanent Turquoise, Teal, Teal, Sea blue, Turquoise, Teal, Teal, Dark turquoise, Sky blue, Light blue, China blue, Sky blue, Blue, Sky blue, Sky blue, Cerulean Navy blue, Navy, Violet, Navy, Ultramarine blue, Dark navy, Navy, Deep green, Camo green, Khaki, Maroon, Military green, Swamp, Forest green, Turquoise, Teal, Turquoise, Turquoise, Teal, Ocean blue, Teal, Turquoise, blue, Solid blue, Sky blue, Sky blue, Light blue, Sky blue, Blue, Sky blue, Sky purple, Navy, Navy, Navy, Marine/dark blue, Navy blue, Navy, Navy blue, Dark green, Army green, Khaki, Dark green, Dark green, Khaki, Khaki, Khaki Ocean blue, Sea green, Teal, Aqua, Turquoise, Green, Blue green, Turquoise, blue, Sky blue, Light indigo blue, Powder blue, Periwinkle, Pale deep blue, Navy blue, Navy, Navy, Royal blue, Dark blue, Dark blue, Navy, Navy blue, green, Khaki, Dark green, Olive green, Khaki green, Khaki, Olive green, Sap Teal, Sea blue, Teal, Grey, Turquoise, Turquoise, Turquoise, Teal, Teal, Pale Sky blue, Aqua, Aqua, Blue, Sky blue, Sky-blue, Light blue, Sky blue, Blue, Navy, Navy blue, Midnight blue, Black, Dark/navy blue, Midnight blue, Navy green, Brown, Dark green, Khaki, Khaki, Racing green, Dark olive green, greeny bluey purple, Blue and green (pacific blue), Aqua, Turquoise, Teal, Light/baby blue, Baby blue, Sky blue, Turquoise, Powder blue, Wedgewood blue, Navy blue, Navy blue, Charcoal black, Night blue, Navy blue, Navy Burnt umber, Khaki, Brown green, Olive green, Muddy green, Khaki, Black, Teal, Teal, Teal, Turquoise, Turquoise, Mint, Grey, Turquoise, Turquoise, blue, Sky blue, Light blue, Light blue, Sky blue, Sky blue, Light blue, Blue, blue, Navy blue, Navy blue, Dark blue, Black (a different tint from above), Forest green, Olive green, Olive, Dark green, Khaki green, Dark olive green, Ocean green, Teal, Light-sea-green, Turquoise, Teal, Teal, Dark teal, Cornflower, Light blue, Periwinkle, Grey blue, Tanzanite blue, Light blue, Navy blue, Marine blue, Navy, Dark blue, Deep purple, Dark blue, Night blue, Khaki, Really dark brown, Dark-olive-green, Olive, Brownish green, Dark Turquoise, Bondi blue, Teal, Turquoise, Turquoise, Teal, Aquamarine, Light Powder blue, Light blue, Purpley blue, Steel-blue, Light blue, Medium blue, Dark denim blue, Really dark purple, Dark-midnight-blue, Navy, Navy, Navy, olive green, Dark grey, Dark green, Dark green, Olive green, Olive drab, Dark blue, Sea green, Turquoise, Turquoise, Turquoise, Bahama breeze, Turquoise, Cornflower blue, Greyish blue, Mid blue, Royal blue, Sky blue, Periwinkle, Very dark violet, Dark blue, Midnight blue, Navy blue, Navy, Navy, French green, Moss green, Khaki, Dark green, Olive green, Dark olive, Olive, Grass Turquoise blue, Turquoise, Teal, Teal, Teal, Green, Turquoise, Turquoise, Light blue, Sky blue, Heather, Very dark blue, Cornflower blue-ish, Bight navy, Violet, Violet, Navy, Royal blue, Navy, Navy blue, Cadet, Dark blue, green, Basil, Olive, Khaki, Forest green, Olive, Khaki, Khaki green, Olive, Teal, Green, Sea green, Teal, Teal, Teal, Marine blue, Peacock blue, blue, Periwinkle blue, Sky blue, Clear skies, Powder blue, Baby blue, Aqua Navy blue, Dark purpley-grey, Navy blue, Navy blue, Navy blue, Beige, Dark Olive green, Olive, Khaki, Dark green, Olive green, Olive, Dark olive, Olive Turquoise, Turquoise, Turquoise, Turquoise, Turquoise, Turquoise, Turquoise blue, Light blue, Sky blue, Light blue, Light blue, Light blue, Blue, Sky blue, blue, Navy, Navy, Black, Dark blue, Navy, Navy blue, Indigo, Dark blue, Navy green, Military green, Deep olive, Olive, Dark green, Sap green, Dark green, green, Turquoise, Sea green, Water green, Marine, Teal, Turquoise, Jade, Blue, Lilac, Light blue, Sky blue, Cyan, Blue sky, Cobalt blue, Sky blue, Light blue, Aquamarine blue, Dark blue, Indigo, Dark blue, Dark navy blue, Dark Olive, Khaki, Pine green, Khaki, Moss green, Olive green, Khaki, Olive, Racing Turquoise, Turquoise-blue, Jade, Sage green, Ocean green, Green, Teal, blue, Light blue, Blue, Sky blue, Light bright blue, Sky blue, Blue, Light blue, navy, Navy blue, Blue, Dark (navy) blue, Navy blue, Navy, Navy, Navy blue, green, Moss green, Khaki, Rush green, Bottle green, Dark grey, Olive green, Turquoise, Green, Turquoise, Turquoise, Teal, Turquoise, Indigo, Dark Baby blue, Sky blue, Blue, Sky blue, Light blue, Sky blue, Sky blue, Light blue, Navy blue, Dark blue, Navy blue, Navy blue, Dark blue, Teal, Purple, Dark Olive, Green, Khaki, Dark green, Khaki, Olive, Olive, Olive, Olive green, Dark turquoise, Taupe, Turquoise, Teak, Teal, Teal, Aqua, Turquoise, Aquamarine, Blue, Sky blue, Blue, Blue, Blue, Turquoise, Sky blue, Periwinkle, Sky blue, blue, Navy, Dark blue, Dark blue, Navy, Navy, Navy blue, Navy blue, Royal green, Olive green, Khaki, Khaki, Emerald green, Olive green, Swamp green, Turquoise, Sea green, Turquoise, Dull turquoise, Jade/turquoise, Green Wedgewood blue, Cyan, Royal blue, Light blue, Baby blue, Light blue, Sky blue, Navy blue, Dark blue, Navy blue, Dark blue, Blue, Navy blue, Navy, Sage green, Sage, Green/henna, Olive, Dark olive, Dark olive, Olive oil green, vermillion, Turquoise, Turquoise, Sea blue, Blue/green, Turquoise, Jasper blue, Cobalt, Light blue, Light blue, Light blue, Sky blue, Cornflower blue, Navy, Navy blue, Navy blue, Navy, Navy, Navy blue, Dark blue, Navy, Black, Khaki, Green, Mushy pea green, Brown, Dark green, Brown, Dark green, green, Dark cyan, Turquoise, Turquoise, Navy green, Teal, Teal, Turquoise, Sky blue, Cornflower blue, Pale blue, Warm sky blue, Light blue cobalt/RAF, Navy blue, Navy blue, Navy blue, Purple, Navy blue, Black, Navy, Navy, Khaki, Dark green, Olive green, Olive green, Black, Khaki-ish greeny brown, Teal, Blue-green, Industrial green, Teal, Turquoise green. Light blue, Air force blue, Midday blue, Sky blue, Light blue, Powder blue, Indigo, Dark blue, Navy, Navy blue, Royal blue, Black, Deep purple, Pen ink Olive, Green-brown, Dark green, Olive, Dark green. Blue, Blue, Cornflower blue, Pale blue, Dusky blue, Sky blue, Light blue, Blue, blue, French blue, Black. Blue, Sunflower blue, Cornflower, Light blue.

WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THIS COLOUR? WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THIS COLOUR? WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THIS COLOUR? WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THIS COLOUR? MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Chartreuse Celadon Cerulean Periwinkle

Have you heard of the Have you heard of the Have you heard of the Have you heard of the colour term chartreuse? colour term celadon? colour term cerulean? colour term periwinkle?

YES YES YES YES NO NO NO NO DIDN’T SAY DIDN’T SAY DIDN’T SAY DIDN’T SAY

DESCRIPTIONS OF THE COLOUR TERM CHARTREUSE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE COLOUR TERM CELADON DESCRIPTIONS OF THE COLOUR TERM CERULEAN DESCRIPTIONS OF THE COLOUR TERM PERIWINKLE

“A green, A red of some sort, A slutty red scarlet colour, Acid green, Beige, Black, Blood “A bright red, A shade of blue or green, A sort of blue/yellow, Black and gold, Blue, Blue “A bright sky blue, A light brown with green tones, A sort of blue, A type of blue, An “A mix of lavender and light blue, A pale blue, A type of green, Black, Blue, Blue Grey, red, Blue, Blue-green, Bold clear yellow green, Bright blue, Bright green, Bright greeny bright, Blue red, Blue/green, Blue/grey, Bold tealish colour, Bright blue, Brown, Brownish, aqua-esque blue, Aqua blue, Black, Blue, Blue-based colour, Blue-purple, Blue, relatively Blue orange purple, Blue violet, Blue-greenish, Blue-mauve, Blue-purple, Blue-violet, yellow, Bright lemon yellow green, Bright light green, Bright lime green, Bright orange, Brownish green, Ceramic coloured, Chinese jade green, Cream, Dark blues, Dark brown, bright close to royal blue with hint of green, Blue/green, Bluey green, Bluish, Bright blue, Blue/purple, Blue/Purple blend, Bright blue, Bright blue purple, Bright light blue, Bright Bright red, Bright yellow, Bright yellow green, Bright/light yellow-green, Brown, Burgundy, Dark green, Dark orange, Dark pink, Dark red, Dark tan, Deep purple blue, Green, Green Bright medium blue, Bright pink, Bright slightly-greenish blue, Bright warm blue, Brown, purple, Brown, Cornflower blue, Dark blue, Dark earthy bluey grey, Dark green a bit of Cream, Dark pink, Dark red, Dark red purple, Deep green, Deep purple, Grass flowery light creamy beige, Greeny blue, Grey green, Greyish blue, High mid vibrant green, Light Brown and orange, Cool blue, Dark blue, Dark blue-green, Deep blue, Deep sky blue, blue, Dark, navy blue, Green, Green, light, Greeny brown, Grey, Grey purple, Grey-blue, green, Green, Greenish, Greenish yellow, Greenish yellowish brown, Greeny yellow, Grey, blue, Light bluish green, Light bright blue, Light green, Neutral colour, Orange, Orangish, Deep turquoise-purple blue, Electric blue, Goldish beige, Green, Green/grey, Greeny Grey-cream, Grey/blue, Grey/green, Greyish, Lavender, Leafy green, Light blue, Light Grey black, Herbally yellow colour, Intense deep bright green, Light blue, Light red, Lime Pale blue, Pale green blue, Pale greyish green, Pink, Pinky purple, Purple, Purpley white, Blue, Grey green, Grey mixed with blue, Indigo-ish, Light blue, Light bright blue, Light blue purple, Light blue/lilac, Light bluey purple, Light cobalt blue, Light orange, Light green-yellow, Maroon, Mid yellow green, Near white colour, Neon-yellow ish, Orange, Red, Reddish, See through, translucent colour, Shiny white, Smoky greeny grey, Some kind green, Midrange blue with yellow tone, Ocean blue, Orange, Pale bluish, Pale, slightly pink, Light purple, Light shade mix of blue-purple, Lilac/blue, Medium blue-purple, Minty Orange brown, Pale green, Pale grey, Pale purple-blue, Pink, Pink and reds, Pink purple, of blue, Sunny orange yellow, Terracotta red, Yellow, Yellowish.” turquoise blue, Pastel light blue, Pink, Pinkish red, Pinkish, bright, Plum-purple, Purple, green, Pale blue green, Pale blue-purple, Pale purple, Pale to medium blue violet, Pale- Pink-red, Pink/grey/yellow, Pinky red, Purple, Purpley red, Purplish, Red, Red a bit of Red, Red-brown, Red-purple, Reddy brown, Reddy pink colour, Saturated sky blue, Sky medium blue, Pastel blue, Peach, Pink, Pink and white pastels, Pink or purple, Pink purple white, Red orange, Reddish, Reddy Brown, Reddy pink colour, Rose, Ruby red, Something blue, Some other mid blue, Strong sky blue, Turquoise, Turquoise/green, Turquoisey colour, Pink-purple, Powder soft blue flower, Purple, Purple-blue, Purple-red, Purpley blue, red, Very light brown, white, Vivid green, Warm-toned medium green, Yellow, Yellow blue, Vivid blue, Yellow.” Purplish blue, Red, Red-pink, Reddy pink, Royal blue, Silver, Soft blue, Stony purple, Very bright, Yellow green, Yellow tinged green, Yellowy green.” dark blue, Violet blue, White pearl, Yellow.”

What would you call What would you call What would you call What would you call this colour? this colour? this colour? this colour?

PINK RED ORANGE YELLOW OTHER OTHER OTHER OTHER MAGENTA SCARLET BURNT ORANGE LEMON YELLOW FUCHSIA BRICK RED DARK ORANGE SUNFLOWER YELLOW HOT PINK CRIMSON TERRACOTTA BRIGHT YELLOW DARK PINK DARK RED TANGERINE VIOLET VERMILLION CERISE BRIGHT PINK MAUVE

THE VARIETY OF COLOUR NAMES GIVEN IN RESPONSE THE VARIETY OF COLOUR NAMES GIVEN IN RESPONSE THE VARIETY OF COLOUR NAMES GIVEN IN RESPONSE THE VARIETY OF COLOUR NAMES GIVEN IN RESPONSE

“Pink, Magenta, Fuchsia, Hot pink, Dark pink, Violet, “Red, Scarlet, Brick red, Crimson, Dark red, “Orange, Burnt orange, Dark orange, Terracotta, “Yellow, Lemon yellow, Sunflower yellow, Bright yellow, Cerise, Bright pink, Mauve, Coral red, Dark Magenta, Vermillion, Brick, Cherry on top, Cherry red, Chrome Tangerine, Brick, Caution, Cinnamon, Orange red, Chrome, yellow, Deep yellow, Pucker up, Pure yellow, Fuchsia pink, Light purple, Lip smacker, Pale maroon, red, Cinnabar, Dull red, Orangey red, Pillar box red, orange-red, Rust, Rust coloured, Tan, Vermillion.” Sun yellow, Sunflower, Yellow primary.” Pink/magenta, Pink-purple, Princess pink, Puce, Scarlet red, Terracotta, Tomato red.” Purple, Raspberry, Rose pink, Scarlet, Shocking pink.” FIGURES 111 – 118, DEVELOPMENT OF OUTCOMES – SURVEY RESULTS

RESPONSES TO THE TERM GREEN RESPONSES TO THE TERM BLUE

Most frequently chosen colours Most frequently chosen colours

PANTONE 369 EC PROCESS CYAN

PANTONE 362 EC PANTONE 2935 EC

PANTONE 355 EC PANTONE 3005 EC

PANTONE 363 EC PANTONE 300 EC

PANTONE 356 EC PANTONE 2995 EC

RESPONSES TO THE TERM CORAL RESPONSES TO THE TERM MAUVE

Most frequently chosen colours Most frequently chosen colours

PANTONE 171 EC PANTONE 252 EC

PANTONE WARM RED EC PANTONE 2572 EC

PANTONE 173 EC PANTONE 245 EC

PANTONE 178 EC PANTONE 2375 EC

PANTONE 179 EC PANTONE 246 EC MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

RESPONSES TO THE TERM PERIWINKLE RESPONSES TO THE TERM CERULEAN

Most frequently chosen colours Most frequently chosen colours

PANTONE 2727 EC PANTONE 2995 EC

PANTONE 270 EC PANTONE 3005 EC

PANTONE 2716 EC PANTONE 299 EC

PANTONE 278 EC PANTONE 300 EC

PANTONE 2718 EC PANTONE 306 EC

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE COLOUR? THE RANGE OF FAVOURITE COLOURS

Favourite Colour What is your favourite colour?

Colour is an evocative medium and many of us develop a Pinky purple, Baby pink, Pink, Fuchsia, personal connection or emotional response to particular hues over the course of our lives. While it would be an Fuchsia pink, Magenta, Raspberry, Coral, exaggeration to say that everyone has a favourite colour, Crimson red, Blood red, Venetian red, Deep many respondents to this survey, and indeed people scarlet red, Red, Garnet, Scarlet, Orange, worldwide, have strong preferences towards particular 50 colours or groups of colours. Terracotta, Deep bright yellow, Yellow, different colours were named as favourites Mustard Yellow, Lime green, Forest green, by participants in the Green, Emerald green, Mint green, Sea survey green, Turquoise, Tropical blue, Teal, Duck egg blue, Electric blue, Azure, Navy blue, As an additional facet to this research participants most common favourite colour was blue, which has been HAVE A FAVOURITE were asked what their favourite colour was. Although shown to be the most popular favourite colour in the this question was not central to the main aim of world. And in accordance with the results of research DON’T HAVE A FAVOURITE Baby blue, Light blue, Blue, Light indigo blue, the investigation, the results show the personal into this subject by Joe Hallock, other colours favoured HAVE MULTIPLE PREFERENCES connections respondents have with certain colours by participants included red, green and purple. All of Blue grey, Midnight blue, Lilac, Purple, Deep and the distribution of colour preferences across the the colours most frequently named as favourites were sample. Whether respondent’s favourite colour had a basic colour terms, apart from emerald green and bearing on how they describe or perceive that colour turquoise. Of the eleven basic colour terms only brown purple, Aubergine, Burgundy, Brown, Dark or other colours couldn’t be established from the data was not named as a favourite, this was to be expected collected from the survey. Nonetheless, it would not as other research has shown that brown is often cited brown, Black, Grey, White, Beige. be implausible to suggest that participants might be as one of the colours least favoured by both men and Blue was the most popular PINK TURQUOISE more conscious of or better at describing, for example, women. shades of green, if their favourite colour was green. favourite colour of the 14% RED BLUE A small proportion of participants did not have a survey respondents. It is ORANGE PURPLE favourite colour, or had a preference for several colours. of respondents did not YELLOW BLACK However, among the majority of those who did name also the most preferred have one particular a favourite colour, 50 different terms were listed. The GREEN GREY colour worldwide favourite colour EMERALD GREEN WHITE FIGURES 119 – 121, DEVELOPMENT OF OUTCOMES – POSTERS

Colourful Language Colourful Language

How does the complexity understanding, and therefore Clockwise from the top, the terms How does the complexity understanding, and therefore Clockwise from the top, the terms of colour terms affect our interpretation of colour terms used in the survey were: of colour terms affect our interpretation of colour terms used in the survey were: understanding and interpretation breaks down as they become understanding and interpretation breaks down as they become of them? How consistent are our more complex. This is significant 1. Pink of them? How consistent are our more complex. This is significant 1. Nude responses to colour terms when because of the hundreds, if not 2. Red responses to colour terms when because of the hundreds, if not 2. Coral they are basic as opposed to thousands of colour names at our 3. Orange they are basic as opposed to thousands of colour names at 3. Maroon sophisticated or obscure? Which disposal we predominantly resort 4. Yellow sophisticated or obscure? Which our disposal we predominantly 4. Puce colour terms are inadequately to the eleven basic colour terms 5. Green colour terms are inadequately resort to the eleven basic colour 5. Mauve understood? This set of posters in English, defined by Brent Berlin 6. Blue understood? This set of posters terms in English, defined by 6. Teal presents a selection of the results and Paul Kay in 1969. This poster 7. Purple presents a selection of the results Brent Berlin and Paul Kay in 7. Pistachio from the survey conducted presents the colours chosen by 8. Brown from the survey conducted 1969. This poster presents the 8. Khaki as part of my Major Project, participants in response to those 9. Black as part of my Major Project, colours chosen by participants 9. Fawn Colourful Language. They eleven basic colour terms, as a 10. Grey Colourful Language. They in response to a set of eleven 10. Tawny seek to demonstrate how our basis for comparison. 11. White seek to demonstrate how our sophisticated colour terms. 11. Taupe MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Colourful Language

How does the complexity understanding, and therefore Clockwise from the top, the terms of colour terms affect our interpretation of colour terms used in the survey were: understanding and interpretation breaks down as they become of them? How consistent are our more complex. This is significant 1. Alizarin responses to colour terms when because of the hundreds, if not 2. Porphyry they are basic as opposed to thousands of colour names at our 3. Ianthine sophisticated or obscure? Which disposal we predominantly resort 4. Periwinkle colour terms are inadequately to the eleven basic colour terms 5. Cerulean understood? This set of posters in English, defined by Brent Berlin 6. Celadon presents a selection of the results and Paul Kay in 1969. This poster 7. Citrine from the survey conducted presents the colours chosen by 8. Chartreuse as part of my Major Project, participants in response to a set 9. Colourful Language. They of specifically selected; obscure 10. Cinnabar seek to demonstrate how our colour terms. 11. Greige

Evaluation “I now realise I have no clue how to describe colour, my colour knowledge relies on describing colours by using the core red, green blue etc descriptors and words such as pale, deep etc. I feel a little more stupid now, thank you!”

(Comment from anonymous survey participant, 2011) MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Evaluation

The evaluation of the project has been broken down into four key areas: methodology, output, critical reflection and personal reflection. These categories represent an evaluation of that which came to be most important throughout the course of the investigation.

7.1 EVALUATION OF METHODOLOGY

The decision to structure the project into a number of Central to the research question was gathering and separate exercises to investigate different aspects of comparing contributions from other people, whether the research question was a deliberate one, initially this was indirectly, through the results of Google Image suggested in the project proposal. This approach has Search and Wordcount, in depth through interviews or allowed me to employ a number of different research quantitatively through the Colourful Language survey. methodologies within a single project. Inspired by This input has proved to be the most valuable research Wayne Daley’s Love Project (Fig. 135 & 136, Appendix conducted as part of the project as it demonstrates the A), it has created the opportunity for me to explore a complexity of our descriptions of colours and the variety wide range of techniques, sources of information and of our understanding of colour terms. data, increasing my opportunities for learning, building specialist knowledge and helping to sustain interest in a Relying on survey participation to provide the content lengthy and in depth study. for the output was a risk, however it proved to be the most appropriate method for gathering the type of This approach also presented me with the opportunity contributions required. This was demonstrated by the to work with a variety of different types of content, responses and feedback received from the survey, which ranging from text based interview transcripts and were generally very positive and have greatly enriched essays to photographs, vector graphics and numerical the project. data from survey questions. This allowed me to create a varied body of visual responses while addressing the Although it is always preferable to have a larger sample, challenge of developing a coherent visual identity for it was felt that the response count achieved in reaction the project. to the survey was sufficient for an investigation of this nature. The results from a total 194 participants were The relationship between colour and language has a analysed, six fewer than the original number aimed for. number of different facets and structuring the project While the total number of participants was higher, a into a series of explorations is not only a reflection of number of responses were discounted because they this but of the varied way we perceive and interpret were incomplete. Further discussion and full analysis of colours. the survey results can be found throughout the Major Project book. Of the negative comments made about the survey, In the proposal for the project I suggested that part of most were complaints that it took too long. This was the aim of the project was to contribute to the existing something that was apparent when the survey was body of research on colour naming and to invite designed. Despite this, the issue was not raised during comments and evaluation from the wider public and the pilot study and if the questions had been split into research community, primarily through my blog. This two surveys as originally considered, it would not have aspect of the project has been relatively successful. been possible to compare the results across the groups Although it was difficult to keep posting work of respondents. On reflection, completion rates may consistently throughout the project, there was regular have been higher had the survey been shorter. However, traffic to my blog and although most visitors did not as the quality and quantity of responses was more than comment, those that did were also researching different acceptable, the design and wording of the survey still aspects of colour and I was able to share resources with achieved the desired result. them and contribute my knowledge and opinions to their research. The in depth interviews with colour specialists were also especially successful. Everyone I spoke to Ultimately, ‘describing colour is more about language had a different perspective on colour and how to than it is about colour’ (Batchelor, 2000). This communicate it. Most were very passionate about the notion perfectly encapsulates how this investigation subject and thoroughly enjoyed talking about it. This has progressed. Describing colours represents a has resulted in a compilation of different views and communication problem, and to explore it using graphic approaches to colour, not only reflected by their varying design methods has been an enlightening process. backgrounds and professions but by the subjectivity of colour itself, in that there is no one right answer. It has provided a direct contrast to the short and structured, but numerous responses to the survey, creating a body of texts that reflects the rich and complex nature of colour. It has proved to be a highly valuable research activity and has greatly influenced my own understanding of the subject.

“It was interesting to find out how difficult it is to pick the right colour by its name.”

(Comment from anonymous survey participant, 2011) MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

7.2 EVALUATION OF OUTCOME

The outcome of the project exists as a book and set There was potential to produce an interactive outcome. of three A2 posters presenting the results and analysis However, as stated in the proposal for this project that of the Colourful Language survey. It is accompanied would have required a greater emphasis on technical by a smaller set of twelve books, which are supporting skills and knowledge at an earlier stage in the project material, and address different aspects of the research and would have diverted considerably more time and question but are not directly connected to the survey. effort away from the production of content. To have created a three-dimensional outcome or to have used The results of the survey are central to the premise a more unconventional information design approach, of the project as they present a snapshot of the ways as can be seen in Data Flow and Data Flow 2 (edited we identify and interpret colours using language. It is by Robert Klanten), would have shifted the emphasis hoped that by examining other examples of how colour away from the content of the project towards the pure has been presented, both as the subject and a feature aesthetics of the presentation. This was felt to be of information design, that a visually successful outcome inappropriate for the subject matter and was not the has been achieved, enhancing but not overshadowing intension of the project. the value of the content. However, the potential of digital and interactive design As the survey was designed to explore a number of has been demonstrated by projects like the Interactive different aspects of our understanding of colour names Colour Label Explorer (Fig 131-133, Appendix A), and it would have been possible to produce a larger series the possibility exists to extend the project in the future, of posters. This appeared unnecessary and it seemed by developing a website which could showcase the more appropriate to use the posters to present the results of the survey in a more dynamic way, if technical results, which best captured the essence of the project. issues could be addressed.

By using a report-style document to present the results of the survey it was possible to accommodate all of the information and analysis, such as the visual, graphical, statistical and written elements and to support the presentation of the other research activities. The output book was also designed to compliment this report and the visual summary for the project, to create set of key documents that encapsulate the main written, visual and analytical aspects of the research. 7.3 CRITICAL REFLECTION

In some respects the research for this project has not With a relatively small sample size, it would be difficult strayed far from the course outlined in the original to claim that this project could ever present a universal proposal. At the time of writing the proposal I was or definitive view of our understanding of colour fortunate enough to have a clear idea of my focus and terms, if that is even possible. However, the results research question. Having this foundation allowed me to presented by this project can be examined within the concentrate on the investigation for the entire duration context of the research that took place. It can still be of the Major Project without the need for an extended used to contribute to the understanding of how we period of continuing diagnosis and definition. communicate colour and promote the notion that colour is different for all of us. However, it was obvious at the mid-way crit that my initial research activities for the Major Project were too As described in the previous section, colour vague in relation to my research question. Although the reproduction was a concern from the very beginning development of other, more pertinent work was already of the project. All possible measures were taken to underway at this point, it prompted me to clarify the ensure consistent colour management was maintained research question from something that was somewhat throughout the research and design process. All of the expansive, to a structure that addressed the focus of the documents for the project were printed to the same project in three specific ways. In doing this I was able to specification, so although the colours reproduced question how each of my research activities related to cannot be accurately compared with, for instance the focus of the project in a far more defined way. Pantone or Munsell swatches, they are consistent and comparable across all of the books. While this This exercise assisted the development of additional arrangement was far from the ideal of colour printing, research activities, not included in the original proposal within the time and tight budget constraints of the and helped refocus my efforts towards a relevant project it was the most satisfactory compromise. output. In turn, the process of writing introductions for the books of each research activity and drafting On reflection there are aspects of the project that this report also helped clarify a number of aspects of could have been managed more effectively. The the project, including my position in response to the commencement of the Major Project would have greatly research I had done and what it represented as a body benefitted from a review of the research generated up of work. until that point, in order to proceed in the most logical manner. Instead my development from Unit 2 into the In the proposal for this project I had speculated that the Major Project was less structured than it should have output could be based on a number of things but would been. This was evident at the mid-way crit and in the most likely take the form of a printed book. At the stage research activities that did not address the focus of the of the mid-way crit it was still unclear what element project directly enough. However, I feel that the work of the research would be formulated into an output. completed subsequently redresses the balance of the However, after reflecting on the feedback I received it project and engages with the ideas outlined in the was apparent that the key ingredient to the success of research question. the project was the participation and inclusion of other people. As a result of this development it was evident that the output for the project should be formed from the results of the survey, as a means of representing the subjectivity in our use of language to describe colour. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

7.4 PERSONAL REFLECTION

I have gained far more from this investigation than I As new research is constantly contributing to our ever expected when I embarked on writing my Major understanding of colour naming I hope to continue Project proposal. It has in some sense, been a personal to research this and related subjects for some time journey through colour and language and has allowed to come. I intend to document this extension of the me to study a complex and fascinating subject, over investigation through my research blog, with the aim a sustained period, which I would have been unlikely of building a comprehensive resource about colour to have had the opportunity to investigate to such naming, with the possibility of collaborating with other an extent, in a professional context. As a result I have already established colour research blogs, colour discovered a subject that could provide a lifetime’s naming projects, or colour researchers. It is hoped that worth of engagement and interest. With areas ranging this project and the continuation of my research into from the highly technical to the captivatingly poetic, it colour may eventually create future research or career would be possible to dedicate a whole career to the in opportunities. depth study of just one aspect of colour. This project has become more than just a vehicle to The interviews I conducted as part of the project have develop and refine my research and design skills, it is allowed me to meet a diverse, knowledgeable and ultimately something that has changed the way I see the inspiring group of colour specialists. This has enabled world. me to build a range of contacts, which may prove invaluable in the future.

I have also been able to build my own body of specialist knowledge about perception, colour and how we describe it with language. This extended far beyond what I initially estimated studying at the beginning of the project. It is a reflection of the number of studies that exists on colour, colour perception and colour naming.

It has in some sense, been a personal journey through colour and language.

Conclusion “...colour is a moment.”

(Hicks, 2011) MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Conclusion

As can be seen from the outcomes of the different NCS, Pantone, l*a*b*, through the use of numerical research activities that comprise this project, when systems and standards. While they have proved it comes to naming colours there is no one decisive highly valuable for technical purposes they have never answer or response. There is subjectivity at every offered a practical alternative to language for everyday level: the subtle differences in the way we physically descriptions of colour. They fail to capture the true experience colour, our interpretation of colour and extent of our experience of colour. finally, the way we articulate it. To achieve a unified and mainstream model for expressing colour would be Although this research has only captured a fraction of impossible and probably undesirable. The variety seen our responses to colour terms, rather than look on this in the responses to the survey, the images generated as a failing of the project I see it as a reflection of the through Google Image Search and the range of nature of language, and because even with this relatively perspectives gathered through the focussed interviews, small scope, it has increased my own understanding of is a reflection of the nature of colour and our attempts the communication of colour immeasurably. I hope that to describe it. some of this knowledge can be shared with the different groups that were identified as the audience for this This project has sort to explore, capture and present a research, either through viewing the project in person or variety of contributions and perspectives to celebrate on online by visiting my research blog. the diversity of how we use language to communicate colour. That we express colour in such a varied way The subject of this project provides a fascinating is exactly what makes it so fascinating. Together, insight into two of the qualities that lie at the very heart these responses not only demonstrate our collective of what makes us human: our ability to perceive and understanding of colour terms, but also, just how much interpret the world around us and then to articulate of colour remains a mystery to us. It is a paradox that it using language. Our descriptions of colour may we lack the capability to successfully articulate and never be perfectly interpreted, but if somehow they communicate something that is so embedded in our were, there would be no opportunities to observe and culture, surroundings and even our biology. acknowledge the diversity and richness of our language and appreciate the subtlety and complexity of our By presenting a collection of different perspectives, experience of colour. And that would make life very dull this investigation doesn’t offer a direct solution to any indeed. of the problems of using language to identify colours. However, this project was never an attempt to solve these issues in a practical sense. A more functional outcome would have been to create a system for communicating colour. This approach has already been addressed in a number of instances by Munsell,

Bibliography Bibliography

LIST OF FIGURES

Figures 1 – 4: Essays on Colour Layout Iterations

Figures 5 – 8: Essays on Colour Spreads of Final Design

Figures 9 – 12: Essays on Colour Analysis Book

Figures 13 – 16: Essays on Colour Analysis Posters

Figures 17 – 20: Strooping the Colour Book Spreads

Figures 21 – 24: Strooping the Colour Posters

Figures 25 – 30: Colour my Words Book Spreads

Figures 31 – 34: When Green isn’t Green Book Spreads

Figures 35 – 36: When Green isn’t Green Poster Iterations

Figures 37 – 44: Colour By Numbers Book Layout Iterations

Figures 45 – 52: Colour By Numbers Book Spreads

Figures 53 – 56: Searching for the Rainbow Book Spreads

Figures 57 – 60: Searching for the Rainbow Poster Series

Figures 61 – 66: Transforming the Rainbow Book Spreads

Figures 67 – 74: Looking for Hue Book Spreads

Figures 75 – 78: Say What You See Book Layout Iterations

Figures 79 – 86: Say What You See Book Spreads

Figures 87 – 90: Deconstructing the Rainbow Book Spreads

Figures 91 – 94: Conversations on Colour Book Layout Iterations

Figures 95 – 98: Conversations on Colour Book Spreads

Figures 99 – 118: Development of Outcomes – Survey Results MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Figures 119 – 121: Development of Outcomes – Posters

Figures 122 – 123: Optical Colour Effects. ALBERS, J., 2006. Interaction of colour. New Haven : Yale University Press.

Figures 124 – 125: Colour Perception in the Himba Tribe. Horizon Episode 1. Do You See What I See?, 2011 [Television Programme], BBC, BBC 2, 8 August 21.00.

Figure 126: Colour Naming Experiment. Nathan Moroney, 2009. [online] Available at: [Accessed 28/11/10].

Figures 127 – 128: The Colour Thesaurus. MORONEY, N., 2008. The colour thesaurus. June ed. Hewlett-Packard Laboratories: Magcloud.com.

Figures: 129 – 130: Public Perception of Colour Project, online. CARTER, R. & N, 2009. Public perception of colour, make your choices. [online] Available at: [Accessed 20/07/11].

Figures 131 – 133: Interactive Colour Label Explorer. O’CONNER, B., 2008. Where does “Blue” end and “Red” begin?, The CrowdFlower Blog, [blog] 17 March, Available at: [Accessed 19/12/10].

Figure 134: Emotionally Vague project by Orlagh O’Brien. Emotionally Vague, 2011. [online] Available at: [Accessed 11/03/11].

Figure 135 – 136: The Love Project by Wayne Daley. Noble, I. & BESTLEY, R., 2005. Visual Research. Lausanne : AVA Publishing. pp.82 & 85. Bibliography

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Appendices Appendix A

Figures 122 & 123: Optical Colour Effects. ALBERS, J., 2006. Interaction of colour. New Haven : Yale University Press.

Figures 124 & 125: Colour Perception in the Himba Tribe. Horizon Episode 1. Do You See What I See?, 2011 [Television Programme], BBC, BBC 2, 8 August 21.00. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Figure 126: Colour Naming Experiment. Nathan Moroney, 2009. [online] Available at: [Accessed 28/11/10]. SUPPORTING ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures 127 & 128: The Colour Thesaurus. MORONEY, N., 2008. The colour thesaurus. June ed. Hewlett-Packard Laboratories: Magcloud.com. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Figures: 129 & 130: Public Perception of Colour Project, online. CARTER, R. & N, 2009. Public perception of colour, make your choices. [online] Available at: [Accessed 20/07/11]. SUPPORTING ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures 131 – 133: Interactive Colour Label Explorer. O’CONNER, B., 2008. Where does “Blue” end and “Red” begin?, The CrowdFlower Blog, [blog] 17 March, Available at: [Accessed 19/12/10]. MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Figure 134: Emotionally Vague project by Orlagh O’Brien. Emotionally Vague, 2011. [online] Available at: [Accessed 11/03/11]. SUPPORTING ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 135 & 136: The Love Project by Wayne Daley. Noble, I. & BESTLEY, R., 2005. Visual Research. Lausanne : AVA Publishing. pp.82 & 85.

Appendix B

SURVEY QUESTIONS

This survey has been designed to help me gather data SECTION 2 – VIEWING CONDITIONS for my MA Graphic Design Major Project about how people talk about colour. Your participation is voluntary Are you viewing this screen in: and you may withdraw from the survey at any time. All Natural Daylight of your answers will be kept completely anonymous and Fluorescent/Strip lights/Energy Saving Light Bulbs confidential. You data will only be used for my research Conventional Light Bulbs/Incandescent/Halogen Bulbs and will not be passed on to anyone else. Is the light: The survey should only take a few minutes of your Bright time, your participation is highly valued and much Medium appreciated. I hope you find this survey interesting. Dim

Is your computer a: SECTION 1 – BASIC DETAILS PC Macintosh Gender Don’t Know M/F Is you screen: Age Flat Screen/TFT Under 20 LCD 20-39 CTR 40-59 Plasma 60 + Laptop Don’t Know Nationality:

Is English your first language? SECTION 3 – COLOUR VOCABULARY Y/N Please name as many colours as you can think of. If no what is you first language? For example red. You can also include names with two words such as sky blue. If you are unsure if a word is a Do you have any colour deficiency in your vision? colour, please write it in the second box below. Y/N There is no time limit for this exercise but around 5 minutes is suggested. If Yes, please indicate which colours are affected: Please write as many informal words or phrases that Do work in the creative industries or have you studied could describe a colour as you can think of. in the arts or design beyond the age of 18? For example ice-cream coloured. Y/N MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

SECTION 4 – MISUNDERSTOOD COLOURS Cerulean Cinnabar Please try to describe what you think the following Eau-de-nil colours look like in basic terms such as: red/blue/ Incarnadine green/brown/light/dark/pale/bright Bice Madder For example terracotta could be described as light brown-orange. If you have no idea what colour it might be, please try to make an educated guess. SECTION 6 – TALKING ABOUT COLOUR

Mauve Puce Do you ever struggle to describe exactly what colour Taupe something is? Fawn Yes Nude No Khaki Rarely Hazel Sometimes Tawny Often Teal Don’t know Pistachio Have you ever had difficulty understanding what colour someone else was describing? Are there any other colour names that you know of but Yes are unsure of what the colour looks like? No Rarely Sometimes SECTION 5 – OBSCURE COLOURS Often Don’t know The following list of words are colour names that are uncommon in English. Please indicate if you have heard Do you think there are enough names for colours? of this colour before and try to describe it using basic Yes terms as with the previous section. No Don’t know If you have no idea what colour it might be, please try to make an educated guess. Do you think it is important to be able to describe a colour accurately? Porphyry Yes Gamboge No Alizarin Don’t know Celadon It depends on the situation SECTION 7 – COLOUR DISAGREEMENTS Pink Brown Have you ever had a disagreement with someone Black about what colour something was? Grey Y/N White

If you can remember the details of the disagreement Mauve please answer the questions below: Puce Taupe What was the object that you disagreed about? Fawn Nude What colour did you think it was? Khaki Maroon What colour did the other person think it was? Tawny Teal Did you resolve the disagreement? Pistachio Coral Are there any other details you would like to add? Porphyry Gamboge Alizarin SECTION 8 – NAME THAT COLOUR Celadon Cerulean Please name the following colours: Cinnabar Citrine Greige SECTION 9 – BEST REPRESENTATION Ianthine Periwinkle For each of the following colour names, please pick Chartreuse from the series of boxes which colour you think is the best representation of that name. Please try not to think about it too much, a gut reaction is best in this SECTION 10 – END case. What is you favourite colour? Red Orange Are there any other comments you would like to add to Yellow this survey? Green Blue Purple Thank you for you participation, it is greatly appreciated.

Appendix C

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Can you describe your background and your 15. How would you describe the colour red to current professional practise? someone who had never seen it or who couldn’t see? 2. How are you particularly involved with colour in what you do? 16. Have you ever had a disagreement with anyone about what colour something was? 3. Do you have to make judgements about or describe colours as part of that? 17. Do you think it was a matter of different perception or a difference in the way of expressing 4. Do you have to communicate or talk about colour that colour? to other people in your work? 18. What is your favourite colour? 5. How good are you at talking about colours? 19. Is there anything else you would like to add? 6. Do you ever struggle to describe colours or articulate precisely the colours you mean?

7. Do you think that people are good at talking about colour in general? Is there a good level of colour vocabulary among the general population?

8. Do you ever have difficulty trying to imagine a colour that someone else is describing?

9. Has working with colour changed the way you talk about it?

10. Are you more aware of colours and how you describe them?

11. Do you think there are enough names or words to describe colours? Should there be more or fewer?

12. Do you ever use other systems or colour standards or systems for communicating colour to other people?

13. Are number systems better than language or just different?

14. How important do you think it is to be able to describe colour accurately?