Slashdot Mirror

IIRC yellow and black is the colour of danger - hence wasps and bees colouring themselves that way, to say "don't bother trying to eat me"

"Baker Miller" pink is the most soothing colour, they paint prison cells this colour to put the violent and agitated prisoners in and there is proof it calms them down. There's also the 'green room' before TV broadcasts that's designed to keep guests calm. Then there's things like Orange that makes you feel hungry (you thought McDonalds just liked those red/yellow colours and that they didn't pay large sums to figure out which would make you part with a bit more cash?)

I'm not sure about books, check your psychology dept in Amazon, but there's plenty of sites with interesting things on them.

I've never flown into a rage after viewing porn. Also, they view movies and television shows in prisons with moderate amounts of nudity. Have any riots started because of cleavage?

While I understand prison is punishment, I would sooner believe that forced sexual repression can probably cause manias and lead to deviant/violent behavior. It's like the effect of Drunk Tank Pink. Several municipalities have tried it. And while the color does create calm for a while, after an extended period and over exposure, the effect is completely reversed causing violent attitudes.

I want to hear what a real psychologist has to say about this.

Bah! You obviously have no idea about color theory!
Surely everyone knows if you mix yellow skinned chinese with blue-skin-causing-silver-matter, you get green chinese!

Wow, mod parent up. The blue food angle is a huge factor here. I think we, as humans, are used to seeing things with a lot of food coloring in them, and we've learned to eat them, but our natural instinct (and the monkey's) might just be to steer clear of them.

As if that concept weren't enough, there's a web site devoted to color which specially mentions that blue M&M's are supposedly unappetizing!

Wow, mod parent up. The blue food angle is a huge factor here. I think we, as humans, are used to seeing things with a lot of food coloring in them, and we've learned to eat them, but our natural instinct (and the monkey's) might just be to steer clear of them.

As if that concept weren't enough, there's a web site devoted to color which specially mentions that blue M&M's are supposedly unappetizing!

1. No material is recorded using that high of color depth.

2. No evidence is provided to support the claim 24-bits is not sufficient.

3. The human eye can see about 7 million colors.

I'll second that. I know it's not appropriate for a guy to say this, but I like pink.

I won't wear it but seeing slashdot dressed in it has a odd calming sensation to it...

http://www.colormatters.com/body_pink.html

Studies have shown that Pink...while soothing for the first hour or so then causes EXTREME violence.

http://www.colormatters.com/body_pink.html

I can feel it! You would'nt like me when I'm angry.

Personal skill at art is something that is teachable and can be learned. Objects look the way they do because of where they are in relation to the viewer and what their dimensions are. Similarly light has rules which you can learn if you are to duplicate the illusion of light in a 2d representation like a drawing. Textures also have rules and so on. It's all about drawing what you see and not what you think is there. Sure there are people who have this ability from early on but the rest of us can learn very quickly.

Math is also teachable, but that doesn't mean that everyone has a mathematician inside them.

Your viewpoint seems to be heavily influenced by Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which presumes as a basic tenet that drawing is teachable. Perhaps your mistake is then making the leap that "skill at art" is teachable. While the book offers encouragement to those who (think they) can't draw, it does not address the not-so-encouraging point that spatial intelligence can't really be taught (but maybe simulated). In the visual arts, observation requires more than just the sense of sight, and even the vital criteria of awareness, sensitivity, presence of mind, and technical ability don't inherently translate to the ability to transcode your sensory input into something personal, meaningful, powerful, and coherent; the ability to do so is "skill at art".

A great deal more can said about this, but in essence I must respectfully disagree with your hypothesis.

As for the question of what non-artists need to build consumable graphic art, lots of people have offered useful nuggets of advice, but I would add: learn some basic color theory, and appreciate the value of understatement.

no one can own a particular frequency of spectrum in the same way no one can own a particular color of light

You can "own" colors, no problem.

See this short article explaining how the courts have favoured/denied color trademarking.

I believe Coke owns their colour of red, IBM blue, KPN (Dutch Telco) green, etc.

As long as the color is not indicative of "function" (ie. isn't associated with a particular "message", ie. blue is cold, red is hot, green is environmental, etc), you have a shot at getting it trademarked.

When trademarked, competitors in your marketspace/mindshare can't use that same colour.

Which means you effectively "own" the wavelength of light that is that colour!