EXPERIENCING AND RESPONDING TO COLOR
In part I we explore the ways we as humans experience color and how we may respond to color as individuals. This includes human sensation and cognition, preferences, and individual evaluation. Chapters in this part address two primary questions regarding how people experience color and how color relationships affect our perception of the world. What is the role of color and design in shaping how we see the world? How do people see and understand color?
LEVELS OF COLOR EXPERIENCE
Our understanding and appreciation of design can be understood and analyzed as related to varying levels of experience. Klarén and Fridell Anter propose a model that explains the complexity of color perception. At the core level, categorical perception is based on preconditions shared by all humans and includes perception of space, light, and shadow. On a second level is our direct experience of the surrounding world, things that we learn through living, such as our experience of nature. A third level is our indirect experience that includes culture, which varies with time and place. At this level we have agreed upon symbols such as internationally accepted traffic lights. These perceptions will be altered by temporal trends that mirror their time and will be judged differently when that time has passed.
The human brain determines the way visual information is processed and our proclivity to organize information in terms of categories, prototypes, and schemata and in both language and visual images. We often use colors to signify our feeling and emotions, such as feeling blue or seeing red. How do these concepts of color and mood fit into our perception of objects and spaces? From household products to automobiles, color sends a distinct message that is related to both function (a juicer made of orange plastic) and also to our ideas about status (a black limousine or a black tie). Color uses can be perceived as standard or communicate ideological stance. Just as our personal perceptions of color vary, the way in which designers use color in our physical environment influences our daily behavior. In “Color in the Designed Environment” Mottram and Jefferies explore the role of color in the urban environment and its effect on perception. They assert that color must move beyond personal meaning to a global understanding of how color functions in the built environment and in branding. Insisting that color education must be an essential part of design pedagogy, they envision a world where designers use materials to enhance global commerce and communication.
COLOR INTERACTIONS
Colors are rarely seen in isolation. Boeri’s thorough discussion of how color theorists have explored combinations of colors in terms of color harmony, contrast, and proportion is an exploration of how humans have sought to create order out of the color vision experience. In her chapter, “Color Relationships,” she elaborates on the color structure developed by Albert Munsell and how this approach leans toward a rational scientific taming of a phenomenon most frequently attributed to subjective experience.
Dennis Puhalla’s quantitative study, “Color: Organizational Strategies,” also seeks to provide a rational approach to color ordering via codes based in Munsell’s vocabulary. This study uses quantitative measures to provide evidence that color-coding, color categorization, and color selection can be objectively derived. He demonstrates the link between human perception of color and the abstract form of color order systems. His goal is to enhance the communication of messages through appropriate color combinations. Used effectively, these colors will allow people to navigate through the world of media and information systems.