Readings
- Chrissie Calvert
- Feb 26, 2023
- 2 min read
Over the past week I've started a couple readings in an attempt to find an interesting reading for my lit review.
The first is Everyday Aesthetics by Saito Yuriko.
The second is Chromophilia: The Design World's Passion for Colour by Regina Lee Blaszczyk
The first talks to the everyday experience and the separation of art and life which is more prevalent in western tradition according to Saito. He speaks about how the white gallery wall frames even frameless artworks, to a particular setting and time and place. He speaks about how eastern traditions of the Japanese Tea Ceremony encompass all the senses and thus create a more well rounded experience. The tone and feeling of this article indicate Saito is convinced the western convention of confined art is insufficient in understanding the entirety of a thing.
The second talks about chromophillia and chromobobia in relation to societal trends. She talks to Josef Albers contribution to colour theory, and his beliefs about colour being non subjective or objective but instead situational and relational. She reasons that the obsession with the overuse of white walls in residential settings stems from the prejudice in western culture that bright colours are infantile. She goes on to talk about how magazines and books targeted at housewives preached the importance of understanding colour harmonies.
Both of these text have some interesting points which could be beneficial to my practice, but I might read more interesting texts before I begin my lit reviews.
Texts I want to read for lit review:
Josef Albers, Interaction of Colour
PANTONE: The 20th Century in Color
Artists I am interested in:
Tauba Auerbach
Mark Bradford
I have been thinking about popular colours at the moment, and what the colour choices say about Interior Design, Societal Trends and Psychology
The top ten colour choices for interior walls, (my subjective take), are:
-Alabaster
-Double Alabaster
-Half Alabaster
-Black White
-Half Black White
-Sea Fog
-Rice Cake
-Thorndon Cream
-Lemon Grass
-Concrete
These are all off whites, the most colourful is Lemon Grass which is an extremely light sage green.
Popular feature wall colours:
-Inside Back
-Duck Egg Blue
-Sorrento
-Karen Walker's Periglacial Blue
-Xanadu
These colours are variants of sage green, aqua, and pastel blues.
Popular Roof Colours
-Ironsand C/C
-Grey Friars C/C
-Karaka
-New Denim Blue
These are all quite dark, nearing black besides New Denim Blue which is a navy colour.
Popular Fence and Deck Stain Colours:
-Pitch Black C/C
-Iroko
-Shadow Match
-Limed Oak
-Crowshead C/C
These are all either black, blackish browns or dark greys, except Limed oak which ahas a greenish tone.
Popular kids room colours:
-Princess
-Tory Blue
-Cest la Ve
-Space Cadet
-Gelato
These are either pink, soft purple or intense blue.
Sheen level tendencies:
There seems to be a trend toward less shiny paint. Low sheen is sometimes not matt enough, and customers are unhappy to hear that skirtings should be in semi gloss.
Wood appearance preferences:
Customers tend to prefer Whitewashed wood in their interiors, rejecting traditional red-ish woods like stained Oak, Cedar etc.
I am interested in researching Pantones as a way of communicating colour, as I work a lot with pantones, especially when sign writers come in wanting specific Pantone colours for their signs. It interests me that there is a standardised system for communicating colour, (the Pantone Matching System), which is used frequently in a commercial setting.
This leaves me with questions like:
What is the system for deciding which Pantones make it into a companies colour chart?
Who sets the colour trends?
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