Transcripts
1. Introduction: We underestimate the
impact of color because we view it as an instrument of
decoration, not utility. It is, after all, the thin layer of coating
applied to walls, to canvases, and to textiles. It is not part of us, but part of our environment
and it surely doesn't affect us and most certainly
doesn't influence us. Or does it? Hi. My
name is Ana Marcu. I'm a licensed architect
from Vienna, Austria. I have a double degree in architecture and
building science. My passion is to create spaces that make
people feel happier, healthier, and more creative. In this class I'm
going to talk about how color is not just a theory, but there's a lot more
science to it than you think. If you take this class,
you're going to learn, among other things, how
color can affect your mood, can help you win a game, can improve your
work performance, can make people happier, more joyful, and it can
even prevent crime. This class is meant
for people who want to understand more
about their emotions and behavior and how that can be influenced by the colors
of our built environment. Because I'm an architect, a lot of the examples used in this class focus on color applied to
buildings and interiors. But just like many
of my other classes, it is mixed with references from other fields like fashion, sports, history, biology,
and, of course, psychology. At the end of this
class you will have a quiz prompting you to answer 10 questions on topics
covered in this class. So make sure you pay attention. Let's start the class. If anybody ever dares to tell you that color
is not important, I hope you can refer back to these stories and
tell them about the latest science and
the difference that color mixing keeps on making
in people's lives.
2. Why Colour Affects Us: Colors have the capacity
to influence our emotions, and our evolution is a
big reason for that. Scientists are estimating
that we can see as many as seven million
distinct shades of color. Why would we see so
many different colors, unless of course, we needed
it in order to survive. The biggest difference
in our vision was made 25 million years ago, where monkeys, who are
otherwise nocturnal, adopted a diurnal schedule
that we know today. Having to rely more and more on sight rather than on smell made the ability to see
color an adaptive advantage. While the eyes of the
nocturnal monkeys only had two color
sensing cone cells, our ancestors
evolved a third cone sensitive to light in the
middle of the spectrum, allowing us to see
more shades of color, and particularly to
distinguish red from green. This was important
because it allowed for identifying the fruits of
the tree from the leaves. Color indicates sources of
energy and finding color made the difference
between our ancestors surviving another day or not, which is why we are so
very sensitive to it. Scientists believe
that color vision became such an important part of our survival that we
sacrificed our other senses, like our sense of smell, in order to allow an increased
capacity to process it. How did color become
intertwined with our emotions? While organisms operate on energy that we find
in our surroundings, we feel a sense of hunger and
are pushed to look for it, and then feel the
sense of joy and happiness and release
once we find it, at least for a while. Bright colors, so reliably
predicted nourishment that they became
associated with joy, happiness, and the
sense of relief. Color is the energy we need
to survive made visible. Brightly lit, colorful
environments are an indication of environments that are capable of nourishing us or
sustaining us long term. Additionally to finding food, the colors of the environment together with the
colors of life, also informed us
about the time of day or the seasons we are in
or are about to arrive. Paying attention to
the colors around us was also critical
to our survival, but more about light
and its relationship to color in the next lesson.
3. Factor 1 - Light: Lightest colors, power supply. How we perceive color is often connected to the
intensity of the light. Light and color needs to
be looked at together. We mentioned in
the previous class that color is connected
to our emotions, but light is also connected
to our emotions. How is that? Light has a massive impact on our circadian rhythm regulating
our sleep-wake cycle. It regulates our
vitamin D production and it influences the
levels of serotonin, which is the prime hormone implicated in how happy we feel. Increasing exposure
to daylight reduces blood pressure and improves
the mood and alertness. Color is connected to our emotions and light
is connecting to our emotions and light and color are connected
to each other. Light, color, and emotions are often
connected to each other, especially in how languages trying to make sense
of how we feel. On a sad day we say we have a black cloud over
us or we feel blue, but when things are going well, we say life is golden. Our moods brighten and darken. We can look at the
bright side or we can see things
in a dark light. Turn down the
intensity of the light and our mood will
go down with it. Bright colors, colors that reflect light in
the room will keep our mood up while
dark colors that absorb light will
dim down our mood. Bright colors
unlike dark colors, spark a feeling of
joy and delight. Like pink and sky blue
are more energizing the Navy in Burgundy because they reflect more
light in the room, in viewing a space with life. Dark desaturated colors
on the other hand, absorb light bringing down
the energy in the space. According to a study done by graphic designer O'Brian
in UK and Ireland, people associate bright colors with happiness and
excitement and dark colors like black and
brown with negative emotions. A study from 2007 on the impact of light and color on the psychological mood of 1,000 workers from across the world suggests
that people who work in light colorful
spaces are more joyful, more alert, more friendly, more interested, and
even more confident. The draft tones of our schools
and offices make us feel restless and
under-stimulated and color is specifically bright colors. I like this shot of
caffeine to our eyes. It wakes us up from complacency. But some nations
have no problem. They're splashing more
colors on their their, but others need more convincing. That's because our perception of color is also dependent
on our culture. We will take a closer
look at how culture impacts our perception of
color in the next lesson.
4. Factor 2- Culture: Our response to color has
also a cultural aspect to it, because different cultures give colors a different meaning. For example, in Europe
and North America, blue is considered
soothing and peaceful, but blue eye-shaved
amulets protect against the evil eye
in Greece and Turkey, and in Ukraine, blue
denotes health. Green in Western cultures represents luck, wealth, spring, and freshness, but in
a country like China, it is associated
with infidelity. Yellow in most Western cultures, is associated with warmth and
optimism and cheerleaders, but in a country like Germany, it is associated with envy. Orange is the color of autumn, warmth and high-risk
in Western cultures. In Colombia is associated
with fertility, and in Eastern cultures where
monk wear orange robes, it is associated with
love and happiness. That is represented by black
in some Western cultures, and in some Eastern cultures, it is represented by white. Why our evolution has made us very susceptible to colors, what meaning we
ultimately give colors, it is very dependent on our cultural background and our emotional
experiences with them. Some cultures really
love saturated colors, while others are a bit more shy when it comes to
incorporating them. If you look at many
nations in the world, particularly Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, people cover
themselves from head to toe in colorful textiles and paint the buildings
with vivid colors. But if you look at
many European cities, they're covered in
nuances of Bayesian gray, and vivid colors are saved for special occasions
and celebrations. One of the most
influential people in this aspect was Johann
Wolfgang Von Goethe, who was a great
thinker and writer, but not a great designer
as far as I know. He wrote, in 1810, in the book named after himself, Goethe's Theory of Colors, that savage nations and
educating people and children have a great
predilection for vivid colors, and that people of
refinement avoid vivid colors in the dress and the objects that
are about them, and seem inclined to banish them from their
presence altogether. Vivid colors are being dismissed as childish
and frivolous, pricing neutral use is the mark of coolness and mature taste. Self restraint is
the true north, and exuberance is an indulgence. It hasn't always been like
this in Europe though, this people have adorn
their clothes and their homes with vivid
colors for century. But our perspective on color, can change not
just with culture, but with time as we will
see in the next lesson.
5. Factor 3 - Time: At the beginning of
the 20th century, two world wars and the
Great Depression left many European countries penniless
and resources depleted, struggling to rebuild
their cities and to create living spaces for as
many people as possible, for as little money as possible. This background of scarcity gave birth to the
international style who set the trend towards
simplification in the core and
desaturation in color. Bright, vivid colors
were nowhere to be seen. Luckily, not everyone embraced this trend and in the 1980s, Viennese artists Friedensreich Hundertwasser
turned his attention towards Vienna's housing and
waste incineration plant, hoping to change the face
of architecture forever. He wanted to create humane and environmentally
friendly buildings, which went very much
against the trends of the time of functionality
and standardization, and were very much against the sea of gray springing
up all over the city. His art was full of vibrant colors and his
architecture followed suit, incorporating not just colors but organic shapes and nature. Vienna's Hundertwasser house, a small housing
block completed in 1985, houses, 52 apartments, 19 terraces, four offices, and 250 trees and bushes
integrated in the structure. He also took the Vienna
incineration wasteland and decorated it's chimney with
golden bowls and red columns, and covered it with his
signature decorative elements. These projects were so different from what was
being built in that time that architects
denounced the results and he became the
laughing stock. Even at the University
of Applied Arts where he was a student
for three months, he was regarded as
positively uncool. He was never really
formally educated as an architect and his style
was a little slap dash, lacking in the elegance
of somebody like, let's say Goldie, who equally shared his
love for organic shapes. But he innately understood that our built
environment has to resemble and be in constant contact with
our natural environment, and that colors have the ability to lift
the human spirit. But time changes everything
and 40 years later, the Viennese relationship to
his buildings has changed. Making his buildings
prime highlights on every tourist guide
and attracting thousands of tourists
from all over the world. The Vienna waste
incineration plant, unlike other plants
who are gray, ugly, and forgotten at
the outskirts of the city is flooded
with tourists and tours take place all around the
clock in order to allow as many people as possible
to see his unique designs. But bright colors are not just tourist attraction
point in a city. Used more widely they can change the behavior of people
living in them. I will talk more about
this in the next lesson.
6. Bright & Saturated Colours: During the second half
of the 20th century, Albanians lived under a very restrictive
communist regime. When the Eastern Bloc
collapsed in 1989, Albania became one of the most dysfunctional
and corrupt countries in the former Soviet Union. In the 1990s, Edi Rama, the son of the painter, returned to Tirana, the capital of Albania, for his father's
funeral and decided to stay and involve
himself in politics, running successfully as
the mayor of Tirana. In his words, Tirana look like a transit station
where one could stay if only waiting
for something. While the cities in
neighboring countries vastly improved. The start of resources
by 10 years after the communist regime Tirana had become a haven for
organized crime, pickpockets and
prostitutes were on every corner and garbage pile up uncollected in the streets. The city was composed
of block after block of gray Soviet
style buildings. There was no money in
the Treasury to rebuild. The Tirana secured a
funding from Germany, and used it to paint
the facades of buildings in vibrant
use of color. Rama sketched some of the
first design himself, choosing strong orange colors
in gaudy like patterns. The side of the first buildings provoked very mixed reactions. People stopped in their tracks like they had seen a superstar. Some people were curious, other were horrified,
a few delighted. When colors came out, a mood of change started transforming the
spirit of the people. They stop littering the streets, they pay taxes and shopkeepers removed metal grates and
shutters from the Windows, claiming that the
streets felt safer, even though there were no
more police than before. Edi Rama said in the popular
TED Talk and I quote, beauty was acting as a
guardsman or police, or the state itself
were missing. Indeed it was beauty
that was giving the people the feeling
of being protected. This was not a misplaced
feeling crime did fall. Only the surface has changed and yet everything has changed in people's sense of
pride and belonging and how are they
interacting with the space and with each other. Similar projects can
be seen in New York, where the organization
public color, transform schools by painting
them with vibrant colors. Often after such projects, Principals report
improved attendance from students and teachers. Just like in your
Tirana both students and teachers self-report
feeling safer. Another beautiful
demonstration of how color and design can change people's behavior
in public space is the project of Stefan
Sagmeister called The Yes Wall. The Yes Wall are actually two opposing walls belonging to an underpass of
a Brooklyn Bridge. The underpass was
used as a toilet by drunken people coming out
from the neighboring bars. With the limited budget, the designers decided to paint two beautiful murals on the
walls of the underpass, changing the way the
underpass was used forever. Once the murals were painted, it became an attraction
point for many people. Because of the massive yes, many newlyweds use the wall as a backdrop for
wedding photography. The underpass was essentially transformed from a
toilet to a chapel.
7. White: In order for you
to understand how important color is internalized, you should understand what the lack of color can do to us. You can see only white can be a torture to look at in
a minute is literally. White room torture is a type of psychological
torture that aims as complete sensory
deprivation in isolation. A prisoner is held in a cell that deprives them
of all senses, and together with that, their sense of identity. The room has no window
and therefore no light, and no views to
the outside world. Visually, the prisoner is
deprived of all color. The cell is completely
white the floor, the ceiling, the walls, the clothes, and even the food. White lights are coming from
neon tubes positioned in such a way that no
shadows are created, depriving the prisoner of
even some shades of gray. The rule is soundproof and
required Stan silence. They use special panel, choose and avoid
making any noise. The prisoner cannot hear
anything but themselves. Each day the prisoner
is served white food. Typically unseasoned,
white rice, depriving them of the
senses of taste and smell. Detainees are held for months or even years in
such conditions. The effects can be catastrophic, resulting in loss of
personal identity, hallucinations, and
psychotic breaks. Due to the lack
of natural light, prisoners also lose
a sense of time, not knowing if they have
been visited the same day, the same week, or
even the week before. One of the detainees who escape this torture system
said that lawyers never leaves him and he is not
able to sleep without the help of sleeping pills
even after his release. So whenever you embrace minimalism a little
bit too fondly and think about bringing home yet another piece
of white furniture. Think about the story
of why torture and that sensory stimulation is what your body and mind needs
in order to thrive.
8. Red: Unlike any other color, red seems to to an effect
on people from all over.
9. Pink: In the late 60s, two researchers in Canada were interested to find
out how they can improve the attendance
in the classrooms and reduce the dropout
rates of students. They went around
schools in Canada and painted the classrooms in
four different colors; blue, green, yellow, and pink. They measured the students
to see if they would be smarter and give better
contributions during the lesson, or be better behave, and so on. It was reasonably unscientific and it wasn't done with
a very careful eye. What they found is
that blue is the case sometimes it reminded
the kids of the sky, and green reminded
them of nature, and yellow is a
bit more vibrant. Pink had interesting effects. It pacified students. They were a bit more quiet
and a bit more thoughtful. The researchers took
the study further, measuring the physical
strength of 38 young men, half of whom stared
at the pink piece of cardboard and the other half at a blue piece of cardboard. After that, they did it again, but this time with the
card boards reversed. After staring at a colored
piece of cardboard, the young men were asked to grip a hand-grip dynamo meter as hard as they could to
measure their strength. It turns out that
98.7 of them were stronger after looking at the blue cardboard rather
than the pink cardboard. Because in the late 1970s, America was fighting a
massive drug epidemic which resulted in the rise of
violent crime rates, a scientific solution
to making people less aggressive caught the
eye of many people, especially those working
in the prison systems. Two commanding officers of the US Naval Correction
Center in Seattle, Jean Baker and Ron
Miller wanted to try this groundbreaking idea in
their facility and painted one of their prison
cells pink to see if a similar effect could be
monitored in their prison. They mixed the paint
of semi-gloss red trim paint with a gallon of
pure white plastic space, obtaining a shade
of bubblegum pink, which is known to this day
as the Baker Miller Pink. They painted all the walls in the ironwork of the
prison cell pink. Before the room
had been painted, violence was a massive
problem for them. But once the pink
room was even in use, there was not a single incident
for 156 days in a row. He tested this also
at a youth center in [inaudible] and the
results were similar. All it took is 15
minutes of exposure. One of the researchers,
Dr Showers, started making a lot of public appearances
to demonstrate how the newly named
Baker Miller Pink was making even the
strongest man weaker. In one of the
televised appearances, he tried out the
mystery California, and the poor man could not
complete a single bicep curl. The Baker Miller Pink
became something of a pop culture phenomenon and
started to creep everywhere. The seats of bus companies,
small-town drunk tanks, prison cells of police stations, and even the opposing
team football lockers. This, of course, created
an academic response with many scientists testing
this Baker Miller Pink, but the results were
a little conflicting. In 1988, a study could not
find a correlation between looking at the shade of pink and the strength or the blood
pressure of participants. But in 1991 a study could find a reduction of
the systolic and diastolic blood pressure of emotionally disturbed
participants who were placed in pink rooms. Why Baker Miller has an effect? It's not very clear. Some people say that it's not a calming effect
that pink provides, but it's a shaming
effect because pink is often associated
with little girls. Often a pink room in an
otherwise gray prison can be so startling that it can interrupt those
aggressive patterns. Thinking back at our
lesson about Wyman colors, it just makes me wonder how
prisoners would feel and behave if prisons weren't
painted just pink, but vibrant colors in general and were
fitted with nature. But all you see is gray. Pink can be that
stimulation that your senses have been
craving for a while.
10. Class Project: For the class project I'd like you to answer 10 questions. In the class
description you'll find a PDF with these questions. Please put in your
answers and once you are finished uploading it to the
student project section, I would love to
see what you have taken away from this class. Now, let's see the questions. How many distinct shades
of color can our eyes see? What was sacrificed in order to allow an increased
capacity to process color? What are the three factors impacting our
perception of color? Give one example from your
maternal language with translation where color is
used to express a feeling. If you wanted to dim down
the energy in the room, which colors would you
choose for the walls? If you wanted to make a
neighborhood feel safe, what colors would you
paint on the walls? What is the impact of
long-term sensory deprivation? What is the first
color ever to be discovered on the
objects of people? What t-shirt color
would you choose to increase your chances
to win in a game? What color is supposed to have a calming effect and is
used in some prisons?
11. Final Thoghts: Congratulations, you have made it to the end of the class. I hope you learned
some some things and already feel
inspired to apply them. If you wish to expand
your knowledge even further on this topic, I encourage you to go to my
Skillshare teacher profile. There you will find
more classes on complimentary topics which I
have no doubt you will love. If you're craving even more I highly recommend that you
explore the wealth of resources available
on my website and we think the attached
bonus resources PDF. There you discover more classes, book suggestions and free
complimentary worksheets. Particularly the
worksheets will help you deepen your understanding
of the topics discussed in the class and I
notify the changes that will have the biggest impact
on your personal well-being. If you're interested in more
freebies or live classes, I encourage you to sign
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and special events. Plus, I have big free resources, book recommendations,
and I'll let you know about upcoming classes. If you liked this class, I would appreciate the review. It tells Skillshare that
you like my class and it encourages other people
to discover my work. Please use the discussion
section to let me know your thoughts and
questions about the class. I'll be happy to help you clarify any concept
you do not understand. Additionally, if you
leave a class project, I will be able to help you with more personalized and
in-depth support, so I encourage you to share your home design
progress with me. We are at the end, See you in the next class.
Ana Marcu, Home Wellbeing, Licensed architect
