Ha, I am very proud that I made that discovery independently as well. In the Light vs Dark theme, I settled on a light greyish green that is somewhat close to the one described here. It really does reduce eye fatigue.
I wonder if the designers of cold war soviet planes read the same color theory because their cockpits are always a very particular indescribable shade of green. There were also very specific colors for subsystems, yellow for fuel, purple for hydraulics etc. Much more than the contemporary US designs.
On US submarines, every bulkhead and beam not in the bilge is painted seafoam green. We were told it was the most soothing/ anti-rage inducing color possible - necessary for long deployments in cramped quarters.
After a little over a decade of service, no other color infuriates me more
It's so nice to see colors in any kind of government, industrial, or commercial building. The "everything must be gray/beige" fad has dominated institutional interior design for at least 30 years. Maybe it's just nostalgia, I remember the wall colors in banks, schools, doctor's offices, mcdonalds, and so on in the 1970s and they seemed so wonderful. All these things got a coat of white paint sometime in the 2000s and look the same as everywhere else now.
We went from overwhelming color chaos of pink and green toilets, carpeted bathroom floors, and kaleidoscope wallpapers to calm, clean, and inoffensive shades of whites and "agreeable gray"s.
Soon enough people will stop thinking of those whites/grays as a fresh, low-chaos decoration decision and switch to thinking of it as oppressively boring and break out with fantastic ideas like ... green toilets and kaleidoscope wallpaper.
I got through this entire article before I realized it was written by someone I worked with back in my agency days. Beth is an awesome designer with a great eye. Nice to see her on the front page here. Now, to the content: I often wonder how much we have lost with our endless quest for minimalism. We can't even make buttons look like buttons anymore. Affordances have become anemic at times. Designers who think and care deeply about functional color theory and usable design should be cherished.
Ha. I didn't realize until I checked the comments that I worked with Beth in Nashville too! Not sure what that says about how I consume content these days... but she's delightful.
Two of my favorite classes in college were Color Studies and Typography. As a long time back end engineer, I would encourage anyone unfamiliar to spend at least a little bit of time looking into both. If you're at all intrigued, treat yourself to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_St.... It will forever change how you look at text (hopefully for the better!).
Great book. I'm a great believer in leaving books behind for other people to enjoy. I left this one when I moved out of my previous flat, and I regret it every day.
Have always been a fan of colors like that for my desktop background. Maybe because it's calming and I don't realize it?
I'm not sure if it started with the teal from Windows 95's default color (hex codes vary based on Google searches), or if it was a purple-ish color from a classic Mac from school.
To this day, my work Mac is teal and my personal is purple.
> We once went on a tour to spot bald eagles in West Tennessee, and upon arrival, a woman with fluffy hair in the state park bathroom told us she had seen 113 bald eagles the day before. We ended up seeing (counts on one hand)…2.
As a semi professional eagle enjoyer, if the day before was trash day, then she might have been telling the truth. I’m not joking, they have bald eagle proofed dumpsters in Alaska.
Seeing all those two-tone walls with green blow and cream above, I bet it isn't coincidental that those tones resemble plants under an overcast outdoor sky.
Either because of unconscious choice, or because some designer theorized that people would be biologically primed to prefer it.
The purpose stated in the article in the mind of Birren was to reduce eye strain. I don't think it's so much that humans "prefer" it as such, more that we're very well adapted to work in environments with lots of it.
While I am sure there are stylistic reasons for using that color, there is another common reason why you see blue-green colors in paint, especially in older industrial environments: zinc chromate/phosphate corrosion protective coatings. Zinc chromate primer is the color you see on the interior surfaces of some aircraft, to inhibit corrosion. Zinc phosphate is more of a gray in most cases, although varying paint chemistries result in a spectrum between those two, with seafoam nearly smack in the middle.
These are still available today, although the chromate version seems less popular for general use due to toxicity, especially (I assume) in the case of a fire.
I have painted quite a few bits of sheet metal with a sea-foam-ish blue-green/gray paint back in the day (30 years or so ago). I don't recall the manufacturer, but it was a zinc conversion coating in nearly exactly that seafoam color, which has probably stolen at least a few years of my life expectancy. The same company sold other paints in a sickly mustard yellow, and close to fire-engine red, all with slightly different chemistries, I assume for different base metals.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 80.8 ms ] threadIt's saying "DON'T NOTICE THIS! (also, please notice this!)"
[0] https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/16434/why-are-r...
After a little over a decade of service, no other color infuriates me more
I’d never even heard of this guy.
We went from overwhelming color chaos of pink and green toilets, carpeted bathroom floors, and kaleidoscope wallpapers to calm, clean, and inoffensive shades of whites and "agreeable gray"s.
Soon enough people will stop thinking of those whites/grays as a fresh, low-chaos decoration decision and switch to thinking of it as oppressively boring and break out with fantastic ideas like ... green toilets and kaleidoscope wallpaper.
Two of my favorite classes in college were Color Studies and Typography. As a long time back end engineer, I would encourage anyone unfamiliar to spend at least a little bit of time looking into both. If you're at all intrigued, treat yourself to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_St.... It will forever change how you look at text (hopefully for the better!).
And? Did it?
I'm not sure if it started with the teal from Windows 95's default color (hex codes vary based on Google searches), or if it was a purple-ish color from a classic Mac from school.
To this day, my work Mac is teal and my personal is purple.
As a semi professional eagle enjoyer, if the day before was trash day, then she might have been telling the truth. I’m not joking, they have bald eagle proofed dumpsters in Alaska.
They’re basically smart seagulls with talons.
Basically the same nonsensical belief as in regard the dark mode nowadays.
I don't even believe it's true. Green is just an army colour, that's pretty much it. Army uses army colours. Mystery solved.
Either because of unconscious choice, or because some designer theorized that people would be biologically primed to prefer it.
These are still available today, although the chromate version seems less popular for general use due to toxicity, especially (I assume) in the case of a fire.
I have painted quite a few bits of sheet metal with a sea-foam-ish blue-green/gray paint back in the day (30 years or so ago). I don't recall the manufacturer, but it was a zinc conversion coating in nearly exactly that seafoam color, which has probably stolen at least a few years of my life expectancy. The same company sold other paints in a sickly mustard yellow, and close to fire-engine red, all with slightly different chemistries, I assume for different base metals.
Sure. But this is not one those things.