I've always been fascinated with colour: colour combinations, colour pallettes ... the age old philosophical pondering of whether or not two people SEE the same colour when looking at the same object. If it had to do with colour, I was just **delighted**.
As a youngster, I enjoyed Piers Anthony's Xanth series (at least the early books) ... in Centaur Aisle, the characters slide down a rainbow and one of them makes the observation about the colours in-between the bands:
... sandwiched between them where ground observers (couldn't see were) bands of polka-dot, plaid and checkerboard. Some internal bands were translucent, and some blazed with colors seldom imagined by man, like fortissimo, charm, phon and torque ...
I don't know how many hours I spent daydreaming about being able to see that particular view of a rainbow. Related to this, I think, was a recurring dream I had where I discovered a brand new colour: Julliard Blue. I wasn't an aspiring musician or dancer, so even today I wonder why I would have wanted to name it Julliard Blue.
Pantone doesn't think the colour exists, but, in one of many happy coincidences, it does bear a striking resemblance to the colour Saxony Blue which happens to be the colour for my birthday, according to Pantone's Colorstrology site. The Julliard Blue has a tinge more grey in it.
This all came rushing back as I read an interesting piece by Todd Falkowsky in this month's Walrus Magazine (Jan/Feb 2008). The piece is entitled Revealing Urban Colours; in it, Falkowsky describes a project where he attempted to discover if there was a common colour palette for Canadian cities ...
I started this project while I was working with a New York consulting firm on the power of celebrity. I asked myself whether there was something about, say, Cameron Diaz’s face we could apply to a cellphone or a car that would increase its appeal. I did something similar for the City of Toronto, trying to figure out whether it has a specific colour that could be used by Canadian firms, and it occurred to me that this could be done for all of Canada.
Twelve colour palettes are published in this issue of the Walrus for cities ranging from Quebec City to Winnipeg (pictured above) to Victoria.
It's an interesting idea ... to see if the essence of a city can be captured in a colour palette. The article is only two paragraphs - so definitely worth the quick read and browse through the colour strips.