Meet the Color Mavens
Kate Smith
"As a professional color expert, trend forecaster, engaging speaker and chief color maven, I work with corporate clients and buiness owners on using color to drive sales and elicit a favorable response to their products, their brands, and their marketing messages."
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Julie Hoylen
"Born with a natural sense of style, Julie is a fashion stylist and consultant working in the New York City area. Julie's professional experience in both the fashion and music industries has allowed her to develop a unique perspective on personal style that keeps her clients turning to her when"
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Featured Book
Make effective, unique and credible color choices
Based on research and filled with hundreds of color combinations and illustrations, Color: Messages & Meanings presents color expert, Leatrice Eiseman’s insights on color and emotion, and addresses how best to integrate these qualities into your work, insuring your intended message is communicated.
Buy this book at Amazon.com
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Women see one color differently then men do: RED
Why?
It turns out there’s a perfectly good reason why men can’t see what is so obvious to women: the many variations–some subtle, some bold–of the color red.
Reuters reports that researchers from Arizona State University in Tempe have determined there is a gene that allows us to see the color red, and that gene comes in a high number of variations.
Because the gene sits on the X chromosome–and women have two X chromosomes and so two copies of this gene, compared with only one for men–the gene aids women’s ability to perceive the red-orange color spectrum. The study findings were reported in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
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The New York Times has an excellent slide show called “Reading Tea Leaves and Campaign Logos”.
Below are two of 15 cartoons. See the slide show here…
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Thanks to the blog SubZeroBlue I discovered that there is a condition called Porphyrophobia which is the fear of the color purple…who knew?
So I decided to see if all colors received equal recognition in the phobia world but only came up with two other specific color fears…
Melanophobia - Fear of the color black
Leukophobia - Fear of the color white.
Of course there is the all encompassing chromophobia - Fear of colors.
Thank goodness the Dr. is IN! No need to fear any color. Have a seat and let’s talk…
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Speaking of niche market car colors Audi designer Steve Lewis describes the color of the new Q5 as “burnt Pacific sunset, sort-of orange umber”.
The UK Telegraph says, “It’s much nicer than that, although we have a substantial bet on that the launch cars will be grey and silver.”
Only time will tell what color they will launch with but it sure does look great in the picture don’t you think?
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… but around the globe other colors are gaining on the front-runner.
Black, a color that held the top spot on the charts for years has regained its popularity and other hues that are brighter and appeal to niche markets are also stepping up to steal some of the limelight.
According to PPG Industries, a leading manufacturer of transportation coatings globally, silver held the top position as the most popular car color.
2007 Color Ranking
Silver 31.5% [down from ‘06 ranking of 33.0%]
Black 18.0% [up from ‘06 ranking of 15.4%]
White 12.5%
Blue 12.4%
Red 8.8%
Naturals (gold, orange and brown tones) 6.6%
Other/niche market colors 5.9%
Green 3.8%
It appears that while many of us want our vehicles to be “green” we don’t prefer them to be painted that color.
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Here is a well done summary of key product trends for kitchen and bath countertops that was a sidebar to the Product Trend Report at Kitchen & Bath Design News.
Kitchen and Bath Countertop Material Trends at a Glance
- Both fashion and function are key drivers of kitchen countertop trends, with designers and their clients looking for materials that look good, are easy to maintain and that will endure the test of time Likewise, hygienic and maintenance concerns are key in bath countertops.
- Because the kitchen is used for many purposes beyond just eating meals, there’s a growing trend toward mixing and matching counter surfaces in order to maximize functionality.
- Quartz is a gaining ground in the kitchen due to its easy-to-maintain reputation and variety of patterns and colors, while glass is adding a decorative element to the bath.
- Granite is still a popular kitchen choice, but some designers and manufacturers see it losing ground to quartz and solid surface due to its greater maintenance requirements and consumers’ never-ending search for “the next big thing.”
- Solid surface materials are still a mainstay in both the kitchen and bath thanks to their good looks, durability and versatility.
- As the mix-and-match trend grows, wood countertops are seeing more interest, with the product being positioned as a warm and durable addition to the kitchen.
- Neutral colors and earth tones are popular picks for both the kitchen and bath, tying into the trend toward more nature-inspired spaces, but some consumers are choosing to make a design statement with bolder, edgier color choices in order to personalize their spaces.
- Both countertop manufacturers and designers are paying greater attention to green issues, as the movement toward using recycled and recyclable materials gains a greater foothold.
Read the complete article at Kitchen & Bath Design and see the Product Photo Gallery…
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Reading Matters editor Kimbofo noticed an interesting trend while visiting her local bookstore.
The colors used on the covers of about 25% of the latest releases of hardcover fiction books were amazingly similar– variations of black, grey, red, and pink.
Above are some of the covers currently on display. Thanks for sharing this interesting color observation!
P.S. It appears that Kimbofo was ahead of the trend curve when she chose these colors for the Reading Matters site.
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The colour of balls used in the English one-day game could change from white to pink if trials by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), guardians of the laws of cricket, prove successful.
“Paint tends to flake off white balls and we have asked (manufacturers) Kookaburra to produce a batch of pink ones because these show up so much better,” MCC’s head of cricket John Stephenson told Tuesday’s edition of the Times newspaper. “The challenge is to produce a ball which retains its colour.
Former England captain Mike Gatting, the ECB’s managing director of cricket partnerships, said: “We have tried white and orange balls and perhaps pink ones will last longer. This is a very interesting and very wise development and a colour may have been found that is easier on the eye.”
Read the entire article…
It may soon be time to add cricket balls to my list of items showing the trends for the color pink!
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In today’s post about boosting AdSense revenue this is what Webupon.com had to say about colors for live links…
“The best color?
Blue. Users already associated the blue color as a link, it´s the default link color.
The second best color?
Matching your website colors. If your links are green, make green ads.”
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HP recently added a color thesaurus to their blog “Mostly color perception”.
It is a fun tool where when you enter a color name it gives you four synonyms for that color name along with a sample of each color but the fun doesn’t end there.
The results also show four antonyms. For those more obsessed with color than language the synonym for antonyms is “complimentary colors” 
Since it always seems to me that orange gets the short end of the stick when it comes to creative color names I thought I’d see if any unusal names might come up. Hmmm the choices for orange are a little dissappointing but not unexpected.
Next I tried chartreuse which produced more interesting results. Even I’ll admit that I wouldn’t have thought of slime as a synonym for chartreuse and an antonym for ultraviolet.
Give it a try and let me know what interesting color names you find.
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