Subject:
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Re: Shades of Gray
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sat, 22 Nov 2003 03:03:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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509 times
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In lugnet.general, Bruce Schlickbernd wrote:
> And to give illustration to the phrase, should that be the British "grey" or the
> American "gray"? :-)
It's 'grey'; learn to spell, colonial scum! :P
> Jake has used a somewhat perjorative rendering of the no-longer-current gray as
> "muddy". It carries the implication that the actual plastic is not up to the
> clarity that Lego is known for. In reality, that is not the case. In terms an
> artist or photographer would use, it is a "warm" gray. That is, shifted to the
> "warm" end of the spectrum (yellow, orange, red), and is more specifically,
> yellow-shifted for both the light and dark gray.
>
> Viewed in isolation, it is not a "pure", or more properly "neutral", gray. When
> one is talking about the fairly straightforward primary colors that Lego was
> long known for, it seems in theory out of step to have a warm gray rather than a
> neutral gray, and I think that is what the Lego company and even their test
> groups are responding to. Looking at my legions of minifig medieval troops with
> warm gray metal weapons and armor, it makes sense to have a neutral gray, or
> even a "cool" gray (blue, green, or purple are "cool" colors).
>
> But when one is talking about buildings, roads, stones, rocks, and concrete -
> the natural world and the building blocks we make of it - then we are talking
> about warm grays. Go out and look at your sidewalk, freeway, or asphault and it
> is probably a warm gray or black (yes, you oddballs with red asphault, I've seen
> it). In fact, this is a color sensitivity game I play with my son, trying to
> get him to look at the road and the clouds and see all the colors that are
> there, and not simply call them "gray".
>
> For so much of what people do with Lego, a warm gray is very appropriate. This
> is ignoring the compatiblity problems of mixing the old and the new - I suppose
> I can actually use it to my advantage as nautural variation in the stone for
> medieval structures, but builders of more modern structures will view the mixing
> as a problem.
>
> The point I would have to make to Lego is that they view this as an
> "improvement". I don't think that is correct - it is merely different. For
> some applications it is better, for some it is worse. It would appear that they
> didn't really think through the ramifications of the change. Perhaps I do them
> a disservice; that they did consider all the issues and felt they had to be true
> to themselves regardless. But I still feel that they have merely made a change,
> and not an necessarily an improvement.
Very well said. I'm not too fussed by the change, but it would be good to have
a comprehensive answer to the reasoning behind it. They don't owe us that,
though.
From what little Jake says (and probably can say), it seems to me that consumer
feedback was a relatively small part of the decision process. It says that Lego
themselves didn't like the colour, and were trying to unify a somewhat
disorganised palette. Perhaps its an improvement from a design, rather than end
user perspective. Mysterious are the ways of Lego...
Michael
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Shades of Gray
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| (...) Are you saying I got the color wrong? :-) (...) I'm somewhat amused at the apocolyptic visions some have placed on the color changes. I rather imagine it is reasonably close to what you outline above. Sometimes you have to do things for your (...) (21 years ago, 22-Nov-03, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Shades of Gray
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| And to give illustration to the phrase, should that be the British "grey" or the American "gray"? :-) Jake has used a somewhat perjorative rendering of the no-longer-current gray as "muddy". It carries the implication that the actual plastic is not (...) (21 years ago, 21-Nov-03, to lugnet.general) !
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