Color‐emotion associations,designing color schemes for urban environment‐architectural settings

Color in urban design has become an important issue, each city may present different colors which help to define and describe its architectural features. In the study, color in urban design with architectural setting is studied, façade colors are analyzed with a specific emphasis on the following research questions; “Can color schemes be designed in respect to color‐emotion associations? ” and “Are color‐emotion associations affective while designing architectural setting‐urban environment?.” Non‐color experts, 170 people, from different European and non‐European countries were asked to match the most appropriate adjectives with the given street views in accordance to their color schemes. In the first step, the effect of color is identified in relation to architectural environment‐urban setting, second the relative effect of color is studied as a component of the material. A categorical specification on color cognition and linguistic level of representation is attempted. The results can be a starting point to highlight the importance of preparing color schemes in regard to color‐emotion associations. Abstract color schemes may also provide us an idea about image setting, especially at design process stage. In the study, keywords are linked as environment‐response pairs; such as quiet, calming, lively, exclusive, reserved, and natural. Human psychophysical structure such as “warm‐cool,” “heavy‐light” in regard to visualizing certain colors are evaluated and described in terms of building materials.     

Identification and formalization of knowledge for coloring qualitative geospatial data

Creating a satisfying qualitative color scheme from scratch may be difficult for novice mapmakers and experts. A probability‐based method is proposed to identify knowledge regarding qualitative color selection from readily available color schemes and formalize the discovered knowledge to assist in color creation. An unsupervised method to extract the general trends of color selection is presented, and the issue of qualitative color selection is translated into a multi‐constraint optimization problem. A feasible solution for achieving the global optimum is then provided. A probability‐based method is also proposed to match abstract color values with specific mapping features. This proposed approach is evaluated in a case study. The results of the case study suggest that the proposed method allows users to create qualitative color schemes more efficiently and confidently.     

Color association research on red‐green dichromats in the color ergonomics of user interface interaction

With the development of our modern information society, digital products have become integrated into daily life. Research on the color ergonomics of user interfaces is a pressing issue. However, color‐vision‐deficient individuals (CVDIs), who account for 4.25% of the population, must use interfaces designed for individuals with normal color vision; the demands of CVDIs have not been sufficiently addressed. In this article, we investigate color associations in the color ergonomics of user interface interaction in a manner that aims both to improve interaction efficiency and to meet the psychological needs of CVDIs. First, we study color physiological cognitions in the color interactions of user interfaces for red‐green dichromats (RGDs) to determine the single‐color, two‐color, and three‐color combinations with high discrimination for a later experiment. Second, we explore the psychological–cognition relationships of colors in user‐interface interactions for RGDs. In an experiment involving 10 pairs of association semantemes and corresponding colors, the experimental results show that RGDs have different color cognitions caused by specific visual color expressions and unconscious environmental influences. Therefore, this article argues that RGD design should consider not only the habitual colors of solidified cognitions but also instinctive color associations. Finally, based on the results of previous experiments, we apply association color to the new interface design of computer security software (360 Total Security) for RGDs. Experimental results indicate that the application of color association in our new design can improve both interaction efficiency and CVDI user experience. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 41, 547–563, 2016     

对石油化工机械色彩设计的探讨

现阶段,人们对于石油化工机械的要求不再仅仅停留于它的操作与功能方面,对于其色彩以及外形也提出了更高的要求。基于石油化工机械的色彩设计原则,运用多种色彩设计手法来提升石油化工机械的色彩呈现效果,以此来打造良好的企业形象,增加机械的附加值,提升产品的核心竞争力,营造美观的工作环境。     

An investigation into the impact of daylight on perceived color of façade: Understanding the role of chromaticness

Color selection has always been a classic problem in exterior color design for the simple reason that façade color is commonly chosen at the architect's office, regardless of different external conditions affecting color perception. This issue often leads to an apparent discrepancy between the selected color and the perceived color of façade. So far, extensive research has been carried out to identify, classify, and study the influence of these conditions on perceived color. However, little attention has been paid to the importance of color attributes. Hence, this article attempts to grasp better the significance of chromaticness, as briefly discussed in earlier studies, in the variation pattern of perceived color while daylight condition differs. In order to determine perceived color, each test subject was asked to compare the color seen on the façade to the standard color samples of natural color system index and choose the matching one, using a designed color‐measuring device. The results obtained from 93 participants demonstrate 3 things: First, they further support the belief that perceived color is influenced in both hue and nuance under varied daylight circumstances. Second, they confirm previous findings that indicated chromaticness would affect the extent of color shifts. And above all, a comparison of the results reveals that façade colors of higher chromaticness values have had less shifts in hue, yet greater shifts in whiteness. Finally, the findings suggest that chromaticness together with the external conditions, under which the color is to be seen, should be carefully considered when selecting the façade color.     

Product color emotional design considering color layout

Emotional experience and demand for product colors are important factors in users' decisions to buy and use a product. Therefore, accurately characterizing users' emotional responses of the product's color has become a significant consideration for product color design. However, a product color design problem exists in which it is challenging to accurately and efficiently position users' color image space because consumers have completely different image perceptions when encountering a large number of color schemes generated by different color spatial distributions. For this reason, this article proposes a product color emotional design method that considers the color layout. A table is built of an elemental composition for product color design, which contains color layout forms. This article also establishes a mapping model based on the semantic difference and back propagation neural network between the users' color image perceptions and the elements of the product's color design. The system recommends a color layout form that matches the users' emotional image goal through the k‐nearest neighbor algorithm, and then the form is initialized using a genetic algorithm. The system can realize the solution to the optimal product color scheme by optimizing and evaluating the population. Designers can make intuitive choices and decisions through the product color recommendation system. Through an example of color design for industrial vacuum cleaners, this article shows that the method has satisfactory feasibility and applicability for solving the problem of the optimization of product color design with color layout forms.     

Investigating seasonal color change in the environment by color analysis and information visualization

Color, as one of the most important dimensions of vision, plays a key role in place identity and people's experience in the environment. This study aims to investigate people's visual experience of seasonal color change in the environment, and proposes an approach for analyzing and communicating environmental colors by combining color analysis and information visualization. Employing crowdsourced Flickr photos, the approach is tested in four gardens: the Humble Administrator's Garden, Ryoanji, the Garden of Versailles, and Central Park in New York. The results show direct comparisons of seasonal color change patterns in different environments, and reflect characteristics of the environments as well as people's experience of color during the four seasons. The primary contribution of this study is to provide a way of communicating colors in landscape design and color research.     

Optimizing the setup of a flatbed color scanner for color measurement using full factorial design

The application of flatbed color scanners for the measurement of color in various industries, especially textile industry, has received a great deal of attention. The initial setup of a scanner and the investigation of factors with a significant effect on scanner outputs are necessary to measure a reliable color using the scanner. In the present study, the setup of a flatbed color scanner was optimized using a full factorial design technique. Three factors, including the scanning position on the glass surface of the scanner (A), cutting size of an image in pixels (B), and bit depth (C), at different levels as input factors, and signal‐to‐noise ratio and variance of the scanned image as the responses were considered for the evaluation of the reliability of the scanner color measurement. The results of analyzing the factorial design indicate that each of the three factors played a significant role in the scanner setup for the color measurement so that factor A demonstrated the most significant impact on the responses.     

离子交换树脂在ECP-2工艺加工药液回收处理中的运用

电影洗印厂大量的废水和废液的排放,会造成严重的环境污染。保护生态环境,是我们每个生活在这个地球上人的共同责任。为了解决这个问题,洗印厂将彩色显影液和停显液经过回收处理再循环使用,从废液中提取CD2的含量,这对环保和经济上都是有益的。本文从使用离子交换树脂的原理、阴离子交换树脂净化彩色显影液、阳离子交换树脂净化停显液、停显液里CD2含量的分析方法和离子交换树脂的运用作了较详细的叙述。     

Color‐person‐environment relationships

Although the nature of color and the person environment relationship are both well‐documented, it is posited that both domains need to be integrated to understand the active role that color plays in the relationship between a person and the surrounding environment. The color person environment relationship (COL‐PE) introduced in this article is an important theoretical concept for designers, and as a consequence, for environmental‐color researchers to investigate. The potential of color to be an active agent in the relationship between people and environments is introduced by drawing upon what is known about color and the person environment relationship from other sources. The nature of transition spaces is used to emphasize how color affects the emotional connection and disconnection between people and spaces. As an example of COL‐PE, transition spaces highlight the nature of the person who is also psychologically in‐transition and color as a potentially important aspect of the transitory experience. In addition, the connections between color and the constructs that we hold of the people who visit, work, or live in particular environments will be discussed briefly. Designers often focus on the object or artifact which is being colored (whether a building or a chair) as an end in itself, without considering in any depth how the designed objects or places can influence how people experience their daily activities and each other. COL‐PE is introduced as a means to address this omission and broaden designers' understandings of the potential impact of their work. The discussion of the aspects of environmental design (with particular reference to architecture and interior design), introduces the foundation of the COL‐PE as a particular way of addressing color in the built environment. The principles of COL‐PE are relevant for a range of disciplines involved in environmental design including urban design, landscape architecture, interior design, industrial design, and architecture. The COL‐PE aims to make explicit what is often an unrecognized or tacit understanding of the role of environmental color, and thereby, the article highlights the need for research to understand the relationship more fully. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 33, 312–319, 2008.     

Chromatic interior environments for the elderly: A literature review

The impact of the physical environment on individuals has arisen as a growing body of research in population wellbeing. Yet, most of studies in this area do not focus on elderly even though they are particularly susceptible to the characteristics of their interior spaces. It is a well‐known fact that to be old is to acquire a tolerance of disabilities based on the gradual degeneration. A common problem is a dysfunction in visual sensitivity and accordingly, the alteration of their environmental color perception. That is why these impairments need to be understood in order to minimize the elderly spatial difficulties. To know at what point there is a loss in the ability to perceive color is necessary to understand how should we take these facts into consideration. A state‐of‐the‐art literature review of current studies from the last 20 years is carried out. The aim is to analyze existing practices on Evidence‐Based Research through a multidisciplinary approach in order to create knowledge about chromatic built environments for the elderly. Data are identified and considered together with empirical experience about color, perception, built environment and elderly. Thus, the way in which elderly perceive the space is explored. The adjustments in the formulation of these impairments throughout any design strategy to adapt the environment to their physiological changes are determined. This article aims to determine a design interpretation of the various findings, demonstrating that color, as a parameter of the visual performance, influences visual comfort and helps performance in architecture for old people.     

基于人机系统的炼油厂设备刷色优化

针对我国炼油厂设备以消色为主色调的刷色设计,对构成无秩序不和谐的色彩环境进行了分析,提出了由人机系统来优化刷色设计,根据民俗文化和地域气候等特点,深入讨论了主色调的刷色设计,在此基础上,运用奥斯特华德色立体标定表面色的方法,确定了刷色设计的优化原则,最后给出了基于人机系统效率较优的设备刷色方案。     

Similarities and differences between male and female novice designers on color‐concept associations for warnings,action required,and signs and equipment status messages

This research examined the male and female novice designers toward color associations for the concepts used for ‘warnings’, ‘action required’, and ‘signs and equipment status’ through a questionnaire‐based study. A total of 178 Hong Kong Chinese final year undergraduate design students (89 males and 89 females) participated in the study. The test used required the participants to indicate their choice of one of nine colors to associations with each of 38 concepts in a color‐concept table, so that any one color could be associated with any one of the concepts. For both male and female groups of novice designers, chi‐square tests revealed a strong color association for each concept tested in this study (P < .05). The results showed males and females agreed on some color‐concept association stereotypes which were therefore gender neutral. The male and female novice designers had the same color associations and similar levels of stereotype strengths for 21 concepts. The nine strongest and therefore most useful color‐concept association stereotypes for both male and female novice designers were: red‐danger, red‐fire, red‐hot, red‐stop, red‐emergency, red‐error, blue‐cold, blue‐male, and green‐exit. However, the male and female novice designers had different color association stereotypes for the standby (green vs. yellow), emergency exit (green vs. red), and toxic (purple vs. black) concepts, and the strengths of the 14 remaining associations for both groups were not at equivalent levels. Overall, it is anticipated that the findings of this study will act as a useful reference for novice designers and other design practitioners to optimize color coding in the design of ‘warnings’, ‘action required’, and ‘signs and equipment status’ messages.     

Precision in the reproduction of colored coatings

The objective of this study was to apply Hotelling's T²‐statistics to color measurement data of colored coatings. It is described, how outliers can be detected by comparing T² with an appropriate statistical distribution function. As an example, the precision in the reproduction of colored coatings produced in laboratory and prepared by a robot for high‐throughput experimentation was investigated on a turquoise coating. After elimination of outliers the precision of reproduction of the coatings color was determined by the sample color differences to the average color coordinates in CIELAB and DIN99 color spaces as well as with CIEDE2000 color differences. As expected, laboratory experimentation (reproducibility conditions) showed a lower precision of color reproduction as samples prepared with the high‐throughput experimentation device (repeatability conditions).     

An intelligent color design method for visual communication design for public crisis

During a crisis, people's emotions are dynamically affected by changes in the environment, and by the attributes of object and subject in ways that depend on an emotion's essential characteristics. Negative emotions can cause psychological harm to people, but specific visual colors can instantaneously dispel or reduce those negative emotions. We developed a color design method based on a hybrid intelligent algorithm to predict accurately the significant negative emotions of people during a public crisis, and to explore the relationship between color structure and negative emotions developed. A Fuzzy Bayesian Network prediction model was constructed of people's significant negative emotions during a public crisis. Then, the concept of color cube was proposed that related color combinations to  particular emotions. Finally, based on the emotion arousal experiment and the BP neural network, the nonlinear mapping relationship between negative emotion and color cube was analyzed to predict the fading versus stimulating color structure of the significant negative emotions. This mapping provides a reference for the color design of visual communications during a public crisis. Our results show that the prediction model of emotions and color design method were effective.     

Progression of color decision making in introductory design education

Color comprises both subjective and objective aspects within its contextual nature. Research on color design tends to explore this seemingly contradictory concerns from theoretical point of view, as well as architectural and design practice. The aim of this study was to observe subjective, intuitive or heuristic and objective, knowledge‐based or analytical attitudes toward color in design education. In the study 84 introductory design students were surveyed progressively to understand their color decision criteria after completion of three 2‐dimensional colored exercises, specific in terms of color education. Students' responses to open‐ended questions were coded according to the 5 categories, under 2 decision making processes derived from the literature; heuristic approach: preferential and symbolic criteria, and analytic reasoning: formal, thematic, and systematic criteria. A distinction between associative and emotional aspects of symbolic criteria was also revealed by the data analysis. The findings showed a shift from heuristic responses to analytic reasoning, as expected. Additionally, it is also investigated that students not only used heuristic approaches but also analytical components (formal and systematic) of color decision making in varying degrees as well, even before any color subjects covered. Thematic color decisions became a major part of the students' design considerations upon completion of color subjects. The observed increase in the number of color criteria interrelated by the students' among almost all categories explicated a complex decision making process particularly in color design and education. These findings were expected to lead to some further understanding in color decision making in design.     

Quantitative study on landscape colors of plant communities in urban parks based on natural color system and M-S theory in Nanjing,China

Plant color landscape plays an important role in improving the quality of visual landscapes, regulating the emotion of landscape space, and highlighting the characteristics of urban landscapes. How to reasonably quantify and create rich plant color landscapes to achieve the best visual perception of the plant color landscape at different visual scales, so as to better meet the aesthetic needs of the public, has become a hot and difficult issue in the plant color design and application. Therefore, this article selects four typical urban parks in Nanjing to study the color characteristics of plant communities. The natural color system color card is used to extract plant color data. The color harmony and suitability degree of the plant community and external environment are quantitatively evaluated according to the Moon-Spencer (M-S) color harmony theory. The correlation between the chromaticity difference, color harmony, and color suitability of the plant landscape color is strong, whereas that between the chromaticity difference and lightness difference of the plant landscape color is weak. Among the four urban parks, the color harmony is the highest, and the appropriate color is the lowest in Xuanwu Lake Park. In addition, among the 12 selected plant community landscapes, the plant community number A3 in Xuanwu Lake Park has the highest color harmony and D3 in Gulin Park has the lowest color harmony. In short, the quantitative study of the plant community landscape color can provide new ideas for improving the optimal allocation of the plant community landscape color in urban parks.     

An interior design exhibition: An assessment of color scheme preferences and the emotional states of students

Color is an essential factor for perceiving objects and their interaction. There are many alternatives to color selection in interior design. Colors can be selected according to a user, physical characteristics of the space or a concept. In this context, research has been conducted on the interior color scheme preferences and emotional states with university students. It contains the findings obtained during an interior design exhibition, which was organized at the interior design department of the university. This exhibition was organized for sampling interior color information, selection methods, and using forms. For the exhibition, to be able to observe the changes in the perception of space and the effects of the color, the visuals were arranged according to different color selection methods in the same space. A survey was conducted during the exhibition to examine color scheme preferences and the relation with emotional states of students on interior designs. In the survey, students were asked whether they would prefer or not each interior space and which emotional state is expressed for each visual separately. The statistical analysis was made, and according to the answers given in the survey, comparative results appeared. It is concluded that the students who participate in the survey have meaningful relationships on the spatial color preferences, and differences are determined in emotional states.     

Quantifying the color palettes of Naghsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan

In the 1960s, Jean-Philippe Lenclos introduced a structured methodology for determining the color palettes of urban environments. After half a century, this method is widely used all over the world. Since this process contains subjective and time-consuming steps, we propose a quantitative improvement of Lenclos' methodology by introducing a fully digital procedure. This removes observer subjectivity and dependence on local illumination conditions. We applied the digital process to the four monumental buildings of Naghsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, a masterpiece of world architecture. The resulting color palettes are more accurate than those obtained in earlier studies. We obtained more accurate color coordinates, characterized by a wider color gamut, and quantified color variations within buildings and between monuments as well.