Out of The Blue : colour theory

Thursday, 18 April 2013

Tribute to an Iconic Designer

Original Album

Storm Thorgerson, graphic designer and childhood friend of the legendary rock band 'Pink Floyd' sadly passed away this week.
Thorgerson was best known for his iconic design of Pink Floyd's music album cover 'The Dark Side of The Moon'. This simple graphic has over the last four decades come to symbolise Pink Floyd and their music genre. As of 2012 the album has sold approximately 50 million copies worldwide and according to the Pop History Dig the album was featured in the top 200 for 741 consecutive weeks from March 1973 to April 1988.

Anniversary Album

Storm Thorgerson, was not reponsible for discovering the colour prism but he can be celebrated for the wide appreciation of Sir Issac Newton's discovery of the refraction of light through a prism. As a tribute to Thorgenson’s lifetime of work in graphic design for Pink Floyd let us look at the colour prism in more detail.

How Is it That We See Colour ?

It was in the 1600's that Newton pioneered experiments with sunlight in his laboratory and discovered that it is light that allows us to see colour. By directing sunlight into a prism he observed that the ray of light was bent – refracted, resulting in an the rainbow of colours each with different wavelengths. The most prominent colours appearing in order from the longest wavelength to the shortest; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.The spectrum appears continuous with no boundaries between the colours as we see in Thorgenson's graphic.

Light being broken down into colours

When we see the colour of an object it is because the light has been either absorbed or reflected depending on the wavelength of the visible light. White light is the total of all wavelengths of visible light. When light strikes a surface some wavelengths are absorbed and others are reflected or bounced back by the pigment or colouring agent giving the surface of objects their colour.

So, if we see red then only red wavelengths have been reflected off the surface and the remaining wavelengths are absorbed. When all wavelengths are absorbed the resulting colour is white. Therefore our colour perception is the result of the light source interacting with the objects we are looking at. When there is no light hence an absence of colour we see black. Newton added the visible light spectrum to a circular shape so that artists could see the complementary colours to red, blue and yellow.

Johannes Itten, Albert H Munsell and Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe continued to develop and experiment with colour and vision, their work forming the basis of our understanding of colour theory today.

It is 40 years since Thorgenson designed the 'Dark Side of the Moon' album cover and we thank him for heightening awareness of the colour spectrum in popular culture.
Join me in my next post on "Colour Trends and Forecasting" Cheers Diyu

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

(With the exception of the Images)

Many thanks to Ramneek Narang, Pink Floyd Official Site and Web Exhibits for the images on this post.

Monday, 25 March 2013

Why Choose Colour ?

Colour is all around us; it is an intrinsic part of life that we may take for granted until we attempt our daily colour choices. What shirt to wear? What coloured shoes? A new toothbrush! A new car! What colour will I choose?

I have always loved colour, I have painted, cooked, eaten, read and studied colour in textiles, cooking, design, art and architecture.

I haven’t however had the opportunity or good fortune to work with colour colour design for long or to run my own colour business due to having a large family and the all - encompassing nature of raising children and involvement in a family business.

I did however take the opportunity when my youngest son went to high school to focus on learning more about colour and being creative which led me to the International School of Colour and Design in Sydney. I thrived in this environment for three years among an enthusiastic and inspiring group of people with a like-minded interest in colour and design

I thrived in this learning environment for three years among an enthusiastic and inspiring group of people with a like-minded interest in colour and design.

I came away from my colour study with three diplomas and an 'Award for Excellence in Visual Arts'. I acquired a wide range of skills from artistic abilities, knowledge of colour theory and psychology, colour palette design, colour-mixing techniques to the broader field of styling, interior design, surface design and colour consulting for architectural developments and real estate. As often happens in life I was unable at that time to pursue my own colour design business and went off to work in business management in a large public company in Sydney, colour still remaining my true passion and way of viewing the world.

The launch of the ‘Tickled Pink - Colour Design’ is a new opportunity for me to combine the skills I have learnt over the past ten years in management, with my underlying passion for colour and design. My involvement in the blogging platform has also provided me with a sort after role in the public sphere that as Jill Walker- Rettburg describes as an opportunity to not only articulate and learn but allow our internal self to be more predominant ( Walker - Rettburg, 2008 )

My aim is to expand my online writing from Kitchen Heirlooms to ‘Tickled Pink -Colour Design a long-held dream and aspiration that I envisage being engaging, thought provoking and informative.
Join me next time for an Introduction to Colour In Web Design Cheers Diyu

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

(With the exception of the Avatar and Parrots Image)

Many thanks to Ramneek Narang, Mocha UK and Mike Jones for the images on this post.