Color: A Brief History

a French chemist whose findings led to psychological concepts of color harmonies.

Color holds a lot of meaning. Throughout history we have established certain colors to symbolise moods, demeanour, personality, religious & spiritual context, etc. Sir Isaac Newton (16th Century) was the man who discovered that sunlight is composed of colors.  Leonardo Da Vinci is said to have been the first to actually organize colors into the circular color charts we know today. Goethe developed a numbering system to represent colors. Michel Chevreul developed color harmonies and studied their effects on humans. All this knowledge has gradually evolved and is now heavily implied through marketing. We have gathered the knowledge associated with all colors and have figured out ways to use them to target markets in order to maximize peoples reactions and response to them. Colors have evolved into a very complex world of Aesthetic.
Consumerism drives our modern day society, which leads to enriching the economy and holds its balance within our intricate social systems of today. Having the power to bend people’s will is a hot commodity. Color has become a way to explore those avenues in various ways with much diversity. In the 1950s, with the evolution of the advertising world came a great need for understanding color and its manipulation. A company by the name of Patone emerged around that time and began a commercial printing company. In 1956, they hired a recent University graduate, Lawrence Herbert as a part-time employee. At the time, Pantone's major business was producing color charts for cosmetics, fashion, industrial and medical firms. Herbert used his chemistry knowledge to systematize and simplify the company's stock of pigments and production of colored inks. Herbert abandoned his plans to pursue a medical career; by 1962, Herbert was running the ink and printing division at a profit, while the commercial-display division was $50,000 in debt; he subsequently purchased the company's technological assets from his employers and renamed them "Pantone”. The company's primary products include the Pantone Guides, which consist of a large number of small, thin cardboard sheets, printed on one side with a series of related color swatches and then bound into a small "fan deck". The idea behind these swatches was to allow for designers to match specific colors and hues and make the best decision to their ability before a design entered into the production stage. This system has been widely adopted by graphic designers, reproduction and printing houses for a number of years.
For a VM, Color is a huge asset. With it we can evoke emotion, nostalgia & and provoke desire. Be sure to research and understand your colors before you use them. Realize their depths of potential and use them well.