When I entered my office today, the topic of discussion was, “what colour do you want in life?” A very simple question was taken as a theme to promote a print media group turning complete coloured. Without even thinking for even a second I spoke “Blue”… that has always been my favorite colour for years now and for many reasons too. But later when I started thinking about the same in evening I realized, Blue is my favorite but its not what I want my life to be. You will say I am now turning very philosophical! But no I am not. I am turning towards Physics for the answer now.
But before I come to the reason of me choosing colour and why, let’s start the colour journey right from where it all began in my life. Well to start from the beginning I would share my mom’s first memory of seeing me as a new born, wrapped in ”Pink” colour in the nurse’s arms. She says I was like an angel for her. But why “Pink”??? I hate that colour. For the reason being solely that I turned out to be a girl (Pink for girl & Blue for boy). So, my journey with colours started from my first breath itself.
Later in school (catholic school), my uniform for many years turned out to be colourless in all terms – white shirt, grey skirt and grey tie; sole reason that I could understand was discipline that they wanted to teach us. Only place or rather time that I used to feel colour was my drawing class (half an hour on Saturday). Our drawing sir always thought us to draw the same scenery of a hut near a river with mountains behind it and a rising sun. I think I have drawn it so many times in those days that I can even tell you number of sun rays I used to make (6). The other place which added one more colour was my classical dance classes, with uniform of white and orange colour. The reason of orange being added was that it creates positive vibes and it’s a colour of energy. When I went to college, best part no uniform, so no colour coding. I had a wardrobe full of colours from bright purple and violets to yellows and turquoise… anything and everything. The colours of youth filled me up. Since then, no stopping of colours and no colour coding.
So, now as a designer when I was told about colours, I reflected back to everything around me. When we say Pink is for girls or orange is for energy, we refer to not our personal choice but on the thoughts that we have being hearing, seeing and sharing with others. But here also there is a difference between a community, a group and an individual’s thought about a particular colour. Like my mom’s favorite colour is red. Red in Indian tradition is an auspicious colour related to a married women. For a youth in love it’s the colour to portray his or her feelings, for a signage on electric board red skull is of danger, for one of my friend she is afraid of red because it reminds her of blood and pain etc. So though red is referred as one of the most auspicious colour in India still it gives a negative feel at a personal level.
All this makes me wonder, when we design or predict a palette of colour for next year are they really valid / work? For the answer I want you to go back to the first drawing you did when you even had no clues of colours. Say I made a drawing of a balloon. Now when I sort of made the shape, and was reaching for blue which I like visually, I get stopped by my teacher and I get a red instead to paint it (because she prefers red). So indirectly or directly rather I am being told that red balloon is what is good or better than the blue. Even when we design or predict the palette, yes there is a research, synthesis, analysis done, but somewhere a designer is also doing a job of telling what one should like / not like. Isn’t it amazing that a designer has an ability to understand others and make them understand what is that one should use / wear.
So what colour I want in life? BLACK… because it’s the colour (or according to few theories not a colour) that absorbs all other colour frequencies. Hence I want 2 absorb more knowledge like black. Now again favorite colour may be blue but in a particular context the colour choice changes. Just like red is auspicious in India, maximum vehicle bought in India are in white or black, uniforms are of grey & white, and even Identity colour preferred are blue and green.
Colour has meanings more than one can think of; personal, spiritual, science, community, religion, geography and trend wise. So don’t stop by just knowing the basic colour palette… go ahead and know your colour.
BE COLOUR OF YOUR LIFE.
