I was reminded of this as I was searching for something today and came upon Smokin Joe’s comment on the forum board at JalopyJournal.com and it make me smile so I thought I’d share with you.

Ford has always come up with colorful names for their paint. Most of them give you NO idea of what the paint’s supposed to look like. Other factories followed suit. Mopar had some really strange colors for the cudas and challengers back in the 70’s. I tried to get some of the purple from a paint store once for an AAR cuda using the factory paint name and the guy didn’t know what I was after till I told him I wanted “Goofy Grape”.

I enjoyed this picture and the comments on Tech Crunch.

Others adding their voice to the conversation include:

New Scientist

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The Truth About Cars

A bit of background: In 2006, California adopted the

My inbox seems to be ripe recently with ads filled with color inspiration. This email advertisement from JCrew caught my eye this evening because it uses a variety of red and orange hues in a way the I found particularly appealing.

They have taken the trend of combining red and orange that has been quite popular this holiday (especially among their target audience) and and subtly used it to add interest to this mostly red and white ad.

I found a grouping of products with the recommendation to “Give the gift of fine leather gear from Levenger this season, or add a splash of festive seasonal color to your own business ensemble.”

A take off on the traditional red and green colors of Christmas the mostly leather items did look appealing but not sure why they chose to call them “Winter Colors” rather than

My friends and colleagues, Jill Morton and Leatrice Eiseman comment on color as the is having on holiday sales in an article by Bruce Horovitz in USA TODAY.

From the article: In the most economically depressing holiday season in decades, there’s one buzzword — besides cheap — that’s still got game at retail: color.

That’s right. Bleak 2008 also happens to be the holiday season when shoppers want many of their gifts to be colorful. Or at least, a different color from last year’s model. And not necessarily apparel: products such as electronics, appliances, kitchen décor, even luggage and their tags. IPods now come in a gazillion colors; so do cellphones and digital cameras. Ditto for laptops and home computers. Color is gaining traction for small appliances, such as blenders and popcorn poppers — and big ones, such as ranges.

“Color is the one area where consumers are saying, ‘I’m going to indulge,’ ” says Marshal Cohen, retail guru at NPD Group. When Cohen advised retail clients about the 2008 holiday, his No. 1 suggestion for most was to expand color selection. Some are adding color and nothing else. Cohen says that’s OK: “When you add color to a product, you stimulate the consumer’s awareness that the version they already have is obsolete.”

Color consultants aren’t surprised.

I just received the invitation to the Color Marketing Group 2009 CMG Asia Pacific Region conference which is being held in Hong Kong, Feb 27-March 1st 2009.

Last year I attended the Asia Pacific meeting in Jaipur, India and had a wonderful time plus learned so much about the colors of the region.

Some of the highlights of the Color Marketing Group Fall 2008 International Conference.  Clicking on the link will take you to the post I wrote about each event:

On Sunday morning, we had a fabulous keynote speaker Tricia Davidson of Duffy & Partners.  She received rave reviews from the member and I wrote a post about her talk The Democratization of Design.

Sunday evenings dinner included a cocktail party and silent auction of original artwork and items donated by CMG members.  Thanks to the generosity of the Color Marketing Group members attending the conference we raised over $4000 for our benefit nonprofit organization Publicolor.

Our Tuesday keynote speaker was Richard Tait, co-founder of famed board game Cranium