Blue Is The New Green
We thought it would be fun to turn the tables and let our clients-Citi, BP, and Waste Management-interview us. And it was our in house color expert who was up for the challenge.
Jack Bredenfoerder is internationally recognized as a color authority, and specializes in color strategy, trends, and forecasting. He has been featured on HGTV and in such leading business, consumer, and design publications as the Financial Times, Communication Arts, Advertising Age, I.D. magazine, and the New Yorker. He is also the immediate past president of Color Marketing Group (CMG), the premier international association for color design professionals.
Q: There are only so many colors in the spectrum. Perhaps it is time to invent another one. What color would you like to invent?
A: The quantity of colors perceived by any living organism is determined by three variables: the viewer, the light source, and the object. In full sunlight, a fully color-acute human can distinguish several million different colors, so there are actually quite a few new colors that might be "claimed" by the branding world. What limits color design is not the physical spectrum, but rather the color-matching systems, ink systems, and printing systems that are available to use. Special effects like pearls, metals, iridescents, color-shift pigments, and holograms can also add to the color experience. When we consider combining several colors into unique brand palettes, the possibilities for a unique color expression for a brand become infinite!
So to answer your question, I would love to create new, exciting, unique, and ownable brand colors for every project I do for our clients. In reality, many clients are not aware that this can even be accomplished. While there are possibilities for new colors throughout the spectrum, I think the biggest challenge would be to create a dynamic new blue.
The recent downturn of the global economy has caused a directional shift back toward the primaries, and in particular to blue, the most liked and trusted hue in the spectrum. The trouble with blue is that it is so safe and ubiquitous that it can get lost in a literal sea of blues. Blue is also often thought of as calming and receding, and for that reason it can also be perceived as boring. What we need is a vibrant knock-your-socks-off blue. The closest we have come to this in the past is the vivid and patented International Klein Blue. IKB is a deep, rich, highly saturated, and vibrant cobalt blue. My new blue would be more electric and brighter, and would evoke the feeling you get when you think of the clearest and brightest blue sky that you can remember-a positive forward-thinking blue.
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visit Landor.com.