The Colour of Magic
Updated: Mar 6, 2020
My favourite animal may come as quite a surprise. I can see why some people tend to enjoy the humanisation of traits from Lions, Eagles, and Turtles (the last one being the patron saint of the introvert) but my love has to be extended towards the Mantis Shrimp. A rather odd, alien looking creature by most standards (sorry lil’ guy) it is easy to wonder why I find this animal so enticing. However, despite its lacklustre appearance, the Mantis Shrimp has a fascinating characteristic that makes lighting designers seethe with envy; their eyes contain
between 12-16 different photo receptive cells. To put that into perspective, Humans have a measly 3. That means, if a Mantis Shrimp were to look at a rainbow, they would witness a dazzling thermo-nuclear display of intense colour. A truly enviable ability.
Colour is by far the most important weapon in a lighting designers’ bag of tricks. Because of certain evolutionary and social factors, we are conditioned to feel powerful emotional responses that are stimulated by colour. The main example I’m choosing to focus on for the purposes of this blog post is that of Orange/Blue. I apologise for all the movies I am about to ruin for the people reading this, but have you ever noticed how films tend to feature an Orange/Blue colour pallet? You may remember from secondary school art
classes that Orange and Blue are opposite each other on the colour wheel, making them complementary. This means that, when used together, they produce a greater contrast between one another, making the image “pop” (Cima 2015: np) and inducing visual interest from the audience. You might also notice Red and Green are complimentary colours (you can probably guess which winter holiday they are utilised in). Orange and Blue also
have a certain psychological affiliation associated with each one. Orange combines the energy of Red and the happiness of Yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and happiness. Because of its association with the day, Orange can stimulate wakefulness and even hunger (due to its association with the harvest). Coincidentally, Blue’s qualities act as polar opposites to that of Orange. Blue is a cool colour thats very presence induces a calming effect. It is associated with serenity, the night, and ethereal. (Rikard 2015:np). An example of these colours representing their psychological effect is the television series A Game of Thrones. The series uses fire and ice as representations for its classic good vs evil story, often using these two oppositional forces (and thus colours) to further push the sense of conflict within the aesthetic of the scene
In conclusion, it is evident that being cleaver when concerning the use of colour in design can help bring about some interesting effects that can boldly highlight the drama within a scene. A master designer hijacks these pre-existing psychological associations in order to
exploit them for pushing the emotional
content of the scene.
Cima R
(2015) Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue
[Online]
Accessed on: 10th February 2020
Rikard (2015) The Psychology of Color: A Designer’s Guide to Color Association & Meaning [Online]
Accessed on: 12th February 2020
Available at: https://zevendesign.com/color-association/#orange
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