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Why is the world losing color?

(www.culture-critic.com)
324 points trevin | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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crazygringo ◴[] No.43558560[source]

It's not "losing" color.

At periods when technology resulted in new color possibilities, people went overboard with color. Make all the things colorful!! Think of the technicolor sixties. And we can go back in history and see the same thing with new clothing pigments, new paint pigments.

But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone.

Modern taste is more about more neutral-colored foundations with color accents. Don't paint a whole room green -- have a gorgeous green plant that stands out all the more against its neutral background. Don't paint a whole wall orange -- have a beautiful orange-hued piece of art on the wall. It's just more tasteful to use color as one element, along with size, shape, texture, and so forth. Making it the main element in everything is just overdoing it. It's bad design.

I don't want constant "riotous color", as the article puts it, in my home, or my workplace, or while I'm driving. It's visually exhausting.

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1. dreamworld ◴[] No.43558911[source]

Yes and, part of it is advertising visually tormenting us. They throw uber catchy colorful banners of stuff we're often not interested in the slightest, doing everything to get our attention. Also, websites featuring advertisement are encouraged to have more muted tones so they stand out. That gets tiresome and we tend to want rest for private spaces.

But overall I agree. If everything is uber-colorful, that can become just overwhelming. Also we are a lot more stimulated throughout the day with screen and movies and games. In the olden days you didn't have a smartphone with a colorful screen, so putting lots of colour in your house or your church made more sense.

I'd want less advertisement, and more thoughtful color choices throughout cities and digital spaces.