Subject:
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Long reply Beware Re: Variety is the spice of life
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.color
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Date:
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Tue, 10 Apr 2007 22:08:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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4110 times
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> I understand the casternation of the community that a company that for so many
> years was able to keep the pallete consistent is failing to do that at the same
> level it used to. Maybe that standard that the LEGO Company set for itself was
> an impossible standard to maintain and in the end set itself up to fail when it
> could no longer maintain that standard.
>
> The facts are that maintaining a consistent color pallete is cost prohibitive
> today. Certainly, they could place that above all other goals, but I fear the
> costs of the bricks, and therefore the sets, would possible lead to the collapse
> of the company. So I am happy that LEGO Company choses to fight the battle but
> ultimately conceeds to a few lost "colors" over time. I believe the color
> variations are ultimately beneficial.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Todd
There are very few things in life that I can consider myself as an expert, but
the one thing is color matching and quality control of color in a manufacturing
process and at the point of purchase. For 30 years I worked in a small paint
factory/paint store and it was for many of those years my job to make sure that
batch to batch the color of the paint was consistant.
It truly is an "impossible job" although in our product it was perhaps more
important than any other and one of the selling points of our business was that
we were really good at batch to batch consistancy. But in order to maintain such
control meant that each batch had to be individually tested against a standard
and then tweaked. For in the process of manufacture there were so many variables
that no matter how accurately you measured out the formula, it would not come
out "perfect".
I agree with Todd on this one that LEGO has done an pretty darn good job in
color consistancy --but it is nowhere up to the standards for paint. But they
are making a toy, not a product where the livlihood of the user is dependent on
the consistancy of the product.
Our company back in the 50's was actually one of first in world to use tint
machines-create tinting bases such that the variety of colors that were actually
stocked were small but the number of colors that could be created infinite. But
with such a system, which is analogous to what LEGO is now doing by adding the
pigment at the "point of puchase" to a standard base (the clear or white
plastic) involves, very tight quality control of the pigment strength and hue
and tight control of the properties of the base in which that pigment is
dispersed.
But from an inventory control and cost standpoint, eventhough the pigments
themselves might be more expesive because of much tighter qc, the benefits are
that one does not have to create batches of one color to meet demand but can
change the color on the fly to meet demand. You never need become overstocked on
a certain color. If for example, they want to produce more dark red, they
simply have to have to change the machines to dispense that combination of
pigments that produces dark red with one of the plastic bases.
So in theory, it can actually become more costistant because bigger batches of
the base can be made. And also, since the base is not customized for each batch,
qc should be much easier to be maintained by the plastic supplier. The key is of
course the pigment that is used to produce the hue and dispensing just the right
amount each time. Each batch of pigment could of course be tested on arrival
against a standard.
But then that word "standard" creeps into the equation. What is the standard.
With plastic-especially ABS, there is color drift over time with exposure to UV
light (or to lack of UV light). The organic pigments used fade over time just
like a 5 year Coke sign is not the same color as the same sign not exposed to
light.
In the paint industry we always kept our standards in a black envelope in a
"cool, dry place" and used one of the last batch and one of the standard batch
from say a year ago. What is the standard of a blue LEGO brick for example.
Should it be one that has been played with for a year, 5 years? or should it be
a sample of the last batch. Color not only "drifts" in the manufacturing process
but also in the environment.
I have more trouble with white bricks than anything. They yellow terribly. I
recently had to engrave over a "wall of bricks" and found at least 10 different
variations of how much yellowing had occurred. But then again it is a toy, and
not something that would ruin the job and cost the maker a bunch of money. ABS
inherrently yellows over time --acrylic much less so and would really make a
better material for white bricks that ABS.That is one of the main reasons almost
all good house paint today and car paint are made from acrylics.
The other problem that creeps into this whole thing is the human eye. The
trained human eye can differentiate ove two million diffferent colors. Minimum.
Heck, when we were trying to pick out what black pigment to use in say our black
trim paitn, there were ove 10000 choices --10,000 different blacks. Now of couse
in theory there is only one black--but trust me there is not. Now if you mix
each of those blacks with a bit of white, you get 10000 different greys. Vary
the amount of white and you get 10's of thousands. Many might not be discenably
different to the human eye, but thousands will be if put side by side. And then
you get the problem of pentamerism (think that is what it called)--the way an
object changes color under different light souces. So under what light should
you match the color? Today incandescent but tomorrow perhaps fluorescent. Or
daylight, or Sodium Vapor. Full spectrum fluorescent is probably the best
standard light--makes for growing good plants also.
But ye of little faith and complainers, there is a silver lining in this change
of manufacturing that might or might not produce less consistancy. It will now
be possible for LEGO, very easily, to introduce a plethora of new colors without
much impact on overall inventory controll. Say they want to make a kit like the
Corner Cafe, Say the are going to make 10,000 but wanted to make the parts in a
special burnt umber color. They could easily produce enough parts of that color
for the number of kits that they wanted to make and not impact their inventory.
Once they have the formula for that color, it would be just like going to the
paint store and getting another gallon of "flamingo pink".
Once they get everything down pat, they could come out with an AFOL line of
colors especially created for the professional builder. Not to say they would do
that, but would be possible. The number of colors they could provide would
essentially be infinite. Not that they would do that. But they will be much more
flexible.
Then they could get caught up in all the fashion trends--this year pale yellows
are in--next year earthtones. Would have to hire Mary Stewart to create the new
pallette. lol
And when fashion came back around(it always does) and primary colors are
in--then they would have a lock.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Short reply Beware Re: Variety is the spice of life
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| Tommy, Todd, Tim and everyone else: I've snipped off the stuff from the beginning--it makes for too long a read. Apologies to all in advance. I agree with you all. It's tough to maintain a set color palette forever, and the UV shift over time can be (...) (18 years ago, 10-Apr-07, to lugnet.color, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Variety is the spice of life
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| To All, I would like to state my $0.02 on this color issue and perhaps open up a new dialog on the whole color variation issue. First, I agree that in the past the LEGO Company has done an outstanding job with keeping the color consistent from batch (...) (18 years ago, 10-Apr-07, to lugnet.color)
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