*** From the Archives ***
This article is from October 19, 2012, and is no longer current.
New Off Book video: The Effect of Color
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The folks at PBS Arts are back with another fun and informative episode of the online video series, Off Book. This time, the topic is The Effect of Color.
The video includes four sections. The first is on color theory, quickly reviewing human color perception, color wheels, and the components of color models like Hue, Chroma, and Value. The next section is on the psychology of color, and explores how color associations operate on three levels: universal, cultural, and personal, and reveals why the red carpet is red. A third section explores color trends, with a focus on the economic, social, political, technical roots of color trends (e.g. the ’70s “brown out” as a response to the overwhelming kaleidoscope of the psychedelic ’60s). A final section, Color in Art, looks the opportunities and challenges in GIF art, where artists have to convey ideas in a palette restricted to 256 colors.
Here’s the description of the episode:
Color is one of the fundamental elements of our existence, and defines our world in such deep ways that its effects are nearly imperceptible. It intersects the worlds of art, psychology, culture, and more, creating meaning and influencing behavior every step of the way. Most fascinating are the choices we make, both subconsciously and consciously, to use color to impact each other and reflect our internal states. Whether in the micro-sense with the choice of an article of clothing, or the macro-sense where cultures on the whole embrace color trends at the scale of decades, color is a signifier of our motives and deepest feelings.
And the video:
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