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Subject: 
Re: Why do you love bley?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.color
Date: 
Thu, 10 May 2007 08:37:10 GMT
Viewed: 
5726 times
  
In lugnet.color, Aaron M. Sneary wrote:
   As a trained graphic designer, and self-proclaimed student of color, I would like to point out that most art instruction books, professors, and other color experts state that pairing warm and cool colors creates stronger contrast and visual interest. I’ve never been told in all my years of art training that pairing warm/cool tones is an inherit error.

I fully understand the concept of contrasting cool/warm tones. It’s one of the first things I was taught regarding theatrical lighting design (though heavily weighted with the idea that you use a strong color for the primary lights, with a contrasting tint for the sidelights, so the second color doesn’t strongly clash with the first). That doesn’t mean that it will always turn out well, though, like when you pair red and green. That’s specifically an issue with the physiology of the human eye, but the particular shade that they picked for dark-bley just doesn’t blend nicely with very many other LEGO colors. That would be the competing stance on color harmony, where complementary colors create a harsh interaction with each other, while analogous colors don’t.

   Further, I take exception to your arguement that LEGO standard blue is ‘warm’. It may be somewhat more green or brown than other companies ‘primary’ blue. But I’ve yet to see any document codifying what ‘primary’ blue is the correct one. It is generally accepted that the cool colors range from green to purple, with blue in between.

It’s “warm” in that it’s not a pure primary blue. It has warm undertones, which significantly affect the way it looks. Very few official LEGO colors do not exhibit a noticable warm undertone, hence my stance that the bleys (particularly dark-bley) do not blend as well visually with the rest of the LEGO color palette, which was in fact what was claimed to have been the primary reason behind the color shift (though why the greys moved into the cool spectrum while brown moved further into the warm spectrum, I have yet to hear a viable explanation).

   I think your malignment of Tim’s eyes is unfair. He clearly has an amazing talent with color (peruse his MOCs sometime). I would go so far as to suggest it is your own perception of color that causes your dislike of these new colors. We do not all see colors exactly the same way.

Fair enough. Tim has even admitted in this thread that he is red-green colorblind. That not being an issue for me, I guess I can’t even begin to comprehend what exactly he sees when looking at the LEGO color palette, just as he can’t comprehend what I see. I know of one colorblind male who once commented on a silver barn being the prettiest shade of blue he’d ever seen, and I interacted with a colorblind female who thought LEGO dark-blue was a very lovely shade of purple (her family members confirmed that it was indeed standard dark-blue, which was a cause of great disappointment for both of us, though for very different reasons).

   As for your argument about flourescent lights at stores, I also disagree. Other than very poorly lit displays at TRU, I have not seen an actual brick or even untouched photo of LEGO on their packaging in 3 years. Exo-Force doesn’t even show the lines between bricks. I would hazard a guess that NO ONE would stop buying LEGO for their children because of the bley color change.

Hey, disagree if you want, but it’s clear from your “counter-arguement” that you misunderstood me. My belief is that the bley change was done specifically to enhance the visual “pop” of the colors within a mass retail environment, such as a toy store. In other words, so that parents would actually be more likely to buy them based on what they see in the stores, not less, as you seem to believe was my stance. As much as I prefer the greys, I do realize that under cool-white flourescent lighting in particular, they do look very aged compared to the non-grey colors, and that’s with brand-new parts.

As for the lighting in the TRU displays, I believe the ones that were built into the tall stacks were internally lit, but all of the ones that were sitting on top of the short stacks were definitely just getting ambient light.

   It’s fine for you to express your preference for colors. That’s your right. But becareful making dramatic claims to support that preference, or I’ll start making up reasons why chocolate tastes bad and fuzzy kittens are ugly.

Having eaten carob, and known some very temperamental cats in my day, I could probably pose a fairly convincing argument myself. I wouldn’t, but I could.



Message has 3 Replies:
  Re: Why do you love bley?
 
(...) And I think this argument is crap. I'd be incredibly surprised if the new bley colors in display pieces made any more than a tiny fraction of a percentage difference in parental purchasing (and probably none at all when a child decides). (...) (18 years ago, 11-May-07, to lugnet.color, FTX)
  Re: Why do you love bley?
 
(...) Like rain on your wedding day. (...) That's cool. People believe all kinds of outlandish stuff. (...) I think, and I could be wrong, the point was that your 'theory' only makes sense if the Lego is actually on display, and even if it was, the (...) (18 years ago, 11-May-07, to lugnet.color, FTX)
  Re: Why do you love bley?
 
(...) No, it is you who misunderstood me. I get that you think the choice is marketing. I'm stating that due to significant graphic manipulation on LEGO packaging, and the limited (and usually in shadow) displays, that most parents and children (...) (18 years ago, 11-May-07, to lugnet.color, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Why do you love bley?
 
(...) (snipped) As a trained graphic designer, and self-proclaimed student of color, I would like to point out that most art instruction books, professors, and other color experts state that pairing warm and cool colors creates stronger contrast and (...) (18 years ago, 9-May-07, to lugnet.color, FTX)

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