JOURNAL Or, THE OPTICAL SOCIETV OF AMERICA

Application of the Ostwald Color System to the Design of Consumer Goods*FABER BIRREN

Faber Birren & Company, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York

THIS is something of a personal history.T I have been active in the field of color for

some twenty-four years. Though my interestshave been broad and general, I have been con-sistently busy with problems of color harmonyand have given more than average attention tosystems and theories.

In my professional work I am less concernedwith abstract notions of esthetics than I amwith the more tangible qualities of mass reac-tion. There is a big difference. Creative effortin the fine arts has wide latitude. Here talentand accomplishment rest largely on so-calledpersonal expression. A painter, for example,gives form to his own moods and fancies. But inthe more humble task of designing colors foreveryday products such as wallpapers, floorcoverings, textiles, the matter of personal feelingmust be secondary to the job of producingmerchandise which people will be eager to buy.While there may be some difficulty in judgingthe artistic merit of a landscape or portrait,there is no difficulty at all in deciding upon thebeauty of a piece of linoleum. From the com-mercial standpoint, at least, beautiful merchan-dise is that which sells!

Controversies in the field of esthetics can beelaborate and complex indeed. I escape them bymaking clear that I talk about people and aboutthose principles of color which seem to gratifyaverage taste. I am not concerned as to whetheror not public taste is good or bad. Yet, if colorsystems are of any value in the styling of mer-chandise, surely they must be able to stand upunder the rather severe test of public fancy. Inthis light, color systems-aside from their use incolor description and designation-are good ornot depending on what aid they will give theartist and designer and what profits they willassure in the glorification of consumer goods.

Twenty or more years ago I was schooled incolor theory at the Art Institute of Chicago andthe University of Chicago. I was taught the

* Paper presented by invitation at the Winter Meetingof the Optical Society of America, held in New York City,March 24, 1944.

viewpoint of Chevreul, the systems of Brewster,Prang, Snow and Froehlich, Walter Sargent, andAlbert H. Munsell. With such an academic kitunder my arm, I went forth to earn my livingas a color consultant. I made the living all right,but I must confess that my neat kit of principleswas pretty soon torn to shreds.

In those days I had good reason to be honestwith myself. When a person faces the public,no amount of orthodoxy or patriotism toward acolor system will do him much good if theproducts he designs just aren't liked. While Imight have personal reasons to admire Chevreulor Sargent or Munsell (which I did), there wasan even greater necessity for me to find outwhat the public admired.

I had pretty good success, but most of it camethrough objective analysis, trial, error, research.There were too many weak spots in my training.Most of my academic notions failed me. Thethings I had learned at school didn't work. Theteachings of Chevreul, Sargent, Munsell did notreveal the universal qualities I sought.

I still try to be honest with myself, for I amstill in quest of answers to the mysteries ofpublic taste. I am a lot more successful now, andI know my way around a lot better. And toWilhelm Ostwald I give thanks for much en-lightenment.

In speaking of Ostwald's system-or any othersystem-it is only fair for me to explain that Iam primarily interested in broad principles andviewpoints rather than specific rules. Ostwaldhas many such rules. But rules are too frequentlysubject to exception and disproof. One pointseems to be overlooked by all theorists-thatpeople are not essentially interested in colorschemes as such! I offer this remark not only tomake clear that all theories of color harmonyhave limitations, but also to question the valueof so much psychological research being con-ducted today.

What interests people, first of all, are singlecolors and dominant color effects. Controlledtests by the psychologists, and rules laid down bythe color system may both, for example, lead to

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the conclusion that complementary hues havemore attraction than other paired choices.

This, however, may be more assumption thanfact, despite the record. Here is why. The averageconsumer enters a store with a precise notion inmind. She will think in terms of rose, or blue,or green, or beige, and the like. And she will besatisfied or disappointed, depending on thebeauty of such single colors or the skill withwhich they have been enhanced.

Far more than a simple application of rules-complements, split-complements, triads, adja-cents-is demanded on the part of the stylist ordesigner. In fact, rules too often lead to di-gressions and irrelevancies. They are usually awaste of effort because they are likely to buildup a lot of arbitrary ideas rather than encouragea frank and objective understanding of humanwants.

Thus, in speaking of color systems and inpaying tribute to Ostwald I shall emphasizebroad principles. Rules may be all right to trainbeginners. Like the practicing of scales in music,the parsing of sentences in grammar, suchpedantic exercises may familiarize a person withthe crude elements of his art, but they hardlysuffice for mature and practical expression.

I repeat that this is a personal history. All Ihave to say is therefore personal to me. To myway of thinking, the work of Ostwald constitutesthe most progressive advancement in the prob-lems of color harmony in well over a century(since Chevreul). And I should like to give myreasons.

Ostwald states that, "Conformability to Lawis equivalent to Harmony." In this he prettywell agrees with the thinking of most colortheorists.

As mentioned before, Ostwald worked out avery thorough list of rules and regulations. TheseI am sure are academic and have been wellcriticized by such men as Guild, Eysenck, andParry in the English publication Nature. Butincidental rules are never as inspiring as basicprinciples themselves, and it is the large andrevolutionary thinking of Ostwald that has beenmost inspiring to me.

My introduction to the work of Ostwald camein 1931 with the first English translation of hisbook, Colour Science. The real value of histhinking was quickly recognized by me, and it

is now possible to review this, again in the formof a personal history.

Ostwald spoke, for example, of the old tradi-tion that "White and Black injure no Colour."To this he stated: "If Colours of different Huecombine harmoniously, then their other elements,viz., their Content of White and Black must alsocombine harmoniously-otherwise no law-con-forming connection can exist between them."

I had been trained to believe that white, gray,or black could be used promiscuously as back-grounds. Without further thought, I had at-tempted all manner of color effects, a high per-centage of which were definitely bad. Ostwaldgave me a new viewpoint. "Value" to him wasnot interpreted as a degree of lightness corre-sponding to an achromatic gray; it referred tocolors containing the same proportions of hue,white and black-"Isovalent Colors."

A lot of my own ideas promptly collapsed.When contemplated in the light of averagehuman appreciation, colors are "seen" not somuch in terms of lightness or darkness, butrather in terms of whiteness, blackness, grayness.A lavender (white-containing purple) and a sagegreen (black-containing yellow) may have equallightness. Yet they are hardly to be calledharmonious.

As related to consumer merchandise, Ostwald'sisovalent colors were beautiful-and no argu-ments were necessary.

Again, Ostwald's insistence upon a correlationof C- W-B made it difficult if not impossibleto divorce design from background. In workingwith his scales every area of the design had tobe accounted for and could not exist apart fromthem. This had tremendous importance to me,for the average product is bought more for itsall-over effect (background) than for the indi-vidual colors placed upon it. And average colortheory had assumed that backgrounds like white,gray, or black lent themselves to almost anycolor arrangement.

Perhaps the most futile approach to colorharmony is when the quality of value (lightness)is placed in the saddle. Overemphasis of value(lightness) had been part of my early trainingand is today almost universally followed in thiscountry. Of all my troubles, and of all the thingsI had to unlearn, this delusion about value wasperhaps the worst. Neat value steps, 3-5-7, for

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example, are said to please the eye. Frankly,they seldom do-for three reasons.

A. Value (lightness) is wholly too dependenton background and amount of illumination.Such values carefully balanced in the clear lightof a studio will fall all out of balance on the dimcounter or shelf of a store. Munsell value 5,for example, may appear halfway between whiteand black when seen on a black background.It will not appear halfway when seen on a whitebackground.

B. The effort to establish uniform values(lightnesses) strides roughshod over what maybe termed "clear" and "consistent" color effects.Yellow may be given a touch of black to pull itdown to the level of an orange or a pale purple-blue. Pretty soon black-containing colors maybe brought into line with white-containing colors.Although the value steps may be quite regular,the average human may feel far from satisfiedwith the result.

C. Most attempts to keep values in order willlead to results which tend to appear blackishand dirty. Color combinations worked out torespect neat value steps often seem to have anunfavorable quality. Although some persons witha highly developed esthetic sense may findsubtlety and beauty in them, the usual run ofmortals will show negative response.

Anyone with practical experience in cateringto mass reactions will recognize that people donot see colors primarily in terms of "value" and"chroma." On the contrary, the qualities ofpredominant hue, predominant white, gray, orblack are what distinguish popular taste. Sucheveryday terms as "pastel tints," "pastel shades,""muted colors," "fall colors," "spring colors,""peasant colors"-most of which have meaningto the average consumer-are obviously identifiedwith consistent forms of pure colors, or white-containing colors, or black-containing colors, orgray-containing colors (isochromes), precisely asOstwald's system has been organized. "Pasteltints" and "spring colors," for example, are to beidentified with Ostwald's isotones which runfrom pure hue to white. "Pastel shades" and"fall colors" will be found to resemble his iso-tints which run from pure hue to black. "Mutedcolors" will correspond to those vertical rows ofcolors (isochromes) immediately adjacent to hisgray scale. "Peasant colors" will be pure hues of

any degree of lightness. The mere exercise ofthinking in terms of C- W-B, rather than hue-value-chroma, will help to sweep out a lot ofthe cobwebs of the past.

It is not difficult to visualize, even with words,the universal beauty of isovalent "tints" onwhite, isovalent "shades" on black, isovalent"tones" on gray-just as Ostwald saw them andorganized them into appealing color scales.

As to the assumption that a color scheme isharmonious if its colors (in corresponding areason a color-wheel) spin to neutral gray, this maybe filed away in the category of things "too goodto be true." As far as consumer goods are con-cerned, most products are bought for the beautyof their predominant hue-the inherent lovewhich people hold for red or blue or green. Withred, for example, if a double area of blue-greenis introduced (for the sake of gray-cancellation)the scheme will no longer be red. The color-wheelwill lead to an unhappy compromise-and such aproduct will not sell to anyone who really"loves" red.

In fact, if the color scheme does not cancelinto gray the chances are that it will have con-siderable appeal, for it will undoubtedly favorone or the other side of the color-circle, be pre-dominantly "warm" or "cool"-qualities whichmost consumers like.

For beauty of organization, the scales in theOstwald System are delightful to behold. Con-cordance runs in all directions-up and down,across, at angles to left and right. The isotintseries (equal white-content), the isotone series(equal black-content), the isovalent circles (colorsof equal hue, white and black content) are ex-tremely appealing. I have personally experi-mented with all such scales, using one designfor the sake of consistency. In consumer goods,where the average person "senses" a pervadingquality of white, black, or gray, the elementof harmony, mentioned by Ostwald, seems tobe confirmed. Where the uniformity involvescolors of equal lightness and/or chroma, theaverage person seems to be less attracted, for theresult is too frequently drab and flaccid.

Among all scales, in any system, the shadowseries of Ostwald (colors of equal purity) areindeed eminent. These are the isochronies. Theyare colors of equal chromaticity.

In this personal history of mine, Ostwald's

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isochromes have been responsible for a sizablechapter. For if any ambitious designer or stylistresponsible for the color treatment of suchproducts as multi-colored rugs, textiles, uphol-stery fabrics, tapestries, and the like, wishes toseize upon a truly magnificent principle, Ostwaldhas one carefully and conveniently established.

Ostwald was quite conscious of the unusualmerit of his shadow series. He wrote: "If oneexamines the earliest examples of shading, as forexample in the Miniatures of the Middle Ages,the method by which it has been attempted toexpress the shadow series may be easily dis-cerned. The unmixed Pigment is adopted forthe deepest Shadow, a little White is mixed withit for the Middle Tints, and much White forthe Lights. In old Painting Books up to the timeof Cennini we find this method of procedureexplicitly described."

As to more commercial products of art, hesaid, "The same method has served to producethe Shading of a Colour on the yarns employedin Carpet manufacture, Embroidery, etc., rightup to the present day. The Shades are dyed withconcentrated Pigment, and the Middle Shadesand Lights with progressively weaker material.

"The low condition of our feeling for ColourHarmony is characterized hardly anywhere oranyhow more clearly than by the fact that thisradically false method is being practiced up tothis day without misgiving. This error givesrise to the intolerable Colour effect which eventhe most talented embroiderers are unable toavoid if they use the Shades sold by the shop-keepers, and there are no others to be had."

In this criticism Ostwald dealt with perhapsthe most conventional and commonplace meansof handling color-to work with a basic seriesof strong rich dyes or pigments and to handleintermediate tones as simple dilutions or mix-tures with white. The stores and the factoriesof the land are packed with such examples-andpretty bad are the most of them.

If one is to work with series of colors, whatmethods of gradation will effect the most appeal-ing result and incidentally sell the most mer-chandise?

In peaking of his shadow series Ostwaldwrote: "The highly gifted Leonardo da Vincidiscovered it for the sphere of Painting. As aborn experimenter he answered the question-

'how must I shade this Colour?'-with thedirection, 'throw a real Shadow on the Colour,and paint the Shadow in such a way that itappears like this shaded place.' By carrying outthis direction he found that he must add Blackto his light Colour, and not pure Pigment aspreviously prescribed. In this way he obtainednew effects of relief in his pictures which threwhis contemporaries, who had never seen the likebefore, into astonishment and rapture. The dis-covery and practical application of the Greycontent of Shaded Colour is the real essence ofthe 'Chiaroscuro' attributed to him as theoriginator. "

The shadow series of Ostwald are colors ofequal chromaticity. And colors of equal chro-maticity, whether light or dark, can be made tomatch exactly if illumination is adjusted to giveequal brightness. A monochromatic harmonywith pink, for example, would lead to soft tonesof rose (rather than to pure red), and down to amaroon of fairly weak purity (rather than to aconcentrated crimson or carmine).

The method is simple enough when the shadowseries are studied. Yet the old habits of mostcolorists must be considerably reformed if theseisochromes are to be appreciated. Harmonybecomes less a matter of convenience in dealingwith dyes and pigments than of adjusting colorsto visual and psychological phenomena. Forcolors in nature, in highlight, and shadow revealthemselves as Ostwald states and as his shadowseries set forth-and not as dyes and pigmentshappen to conduct themselves. This means con-trol by the designer over his medium, ratherthan a careless or lazy abandonment to it.

Ostwald's achievements and discoveries havemeant a lot to me. I have but discussed a fewof his more obvious and useful findings. Hisviewpoint, strongly psychological, has broughtreal progress and momentum to the art of color.Best of all, it has closed off futile paths alongwhich so many of us have wandered and been lost.

For Ostwald, I am sure, can set anyone straight,just as he has set me straight. However, nosystem-Ostwald, Munsell, Chevreul, or anyother-need be accepted as a final and omnipo-tent code. Color theory, like science itself, is afluid and changing thing. May it always remainso, and may it always have men like Ostwaldto lead it ahead!

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