It’s Nice That has a brilliant article on the evolution of how humans perceive and define colour by WGSN’s colour director Jane Monnington Boddy:
Colour is one of the purest and most primitive forms of communication we have. It signals danger with the yellow and black of wasps bodies, while pretty pink flowers invite pollination. Throughout mankind’s evolution, we’ve come to associate particular colours with emotional responses and triggers. Yet it’s also one of the most subjective and disputed visual sensations there is.
Henri Matisse said: “My choice of colours is not based on any scientific theory. It is based on observation, on feeling, on the very nature of each experience. I simply seek to find colours that will fit my feeling.” Humans connect with colour on a visceral level, and a colour’s psychological associations run deep within human culture and imagination. As such, when faced with making colour selections people tend to be guided by their own subjective colour propensities. Colourblindness aside, what’s indigo to me may seem like a violet to you. Berlin and Kay even explored how culture plays a part in their book Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution, which explores how entire countries categorise colour differently. For instance, in Greece and Russia light blue and dark blue are considered completely different colours, as dissimilar as orange and purple.
Read the full article here.
