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There is a very long tradition in designing color palettes for various applications. Although color palettes have been influenced by the available colorants, starting with the advent of aniline dyes there have been few physical limits on the choice of individual colors. This abundance of choices exacerbates the problem of limiting the number of colors in a palette. The traditional solution is that of "color forecasting." Color consultants assess the sentiment or affective state of a target customer class and compare it with new colorants offered by the industry. They assemble a limited color palette, name the colors according to the sentiment, and publish their result. The color forecasting business is very labor intensive and difficult, thus for years computer engineers have tried to come up with algorithms to design harmonious color palettes, alas with little commercial success. Contrary to the auditory sense, there is no known physiological mechanism sustaining harmony and the term "harmonious" just has the informal meaning of "going well together." We argue that the intellectual flaw resides in the belief that a masterful individual can devise a "perfect methodology" that the engineer can then reduce to practice in a computer program. We suggest that the correct approach is to consider color forecasting as an act of distillation, where a palette is digested from the sentiment of a very large number of people. We describe how this approach can be reduced to an algorithm by replacing the subjective process with a data analytic process.
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Harmonious colors: from alchemy to science
Giordano B. Beretta Nathan M. Moroney
Printing & Content Delivery LabHewlett-Packard Laboratories
Palo Alto, California
Color Imaging XVII:Displaying, Processing, Hardcopy, and Applications
San Francisco Airport, 24 – 26 January 2012
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 1 / 12
Color palettes cannot be assembled color by color
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 2 / 12
Historical palettes can be reconstructed
. . . but today there are no limits on color specification other than gamut hullsBeretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 3 / 12
Color theories are tempting
1070-Y
4040B 2060R
3060G
1070-Y30R
1070-Y50R
1070-Y80R
2060-R20B3055-R50B
3560-R80B
4040-B50G
2070-G50Y
Gelb
Gelborange
Orange
Rot-orange
Rot
Rotviolett
Violett
Blauviolett
Blau
Blau-grün
Grün
Gelbgrün
. . . but symmetries in a color space are not useful in practice, other than forteaching
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 4 / 12
Color palettes by professional designers
I more recent: Adobe Kuler, COLOURLovers, MTurkI designer’s palettes are typically small, how can I extend a palette?I how can I find the best palette in a large collection?I how do I know a palette is still en vogue?
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 5 / 12
The many meanings of harmony
prophet / philosopher
archetypes
harmony / 和
I no visual mechanism for color harmonyI harmony = go well together, an informal
conceptI alchemist: no scientifically rooted basis
for a toolI archetype: palette engrained in a
culture’s collective mind, based oncolorant availability, etc.
I color consultant: capture the sentimentI Far East: harmony = people = sum
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 6 / 12
The third Millennium
DL360
StorageWorks MSA1000
UPS 3000 XR
I cloud computingI crowd-sourcingI big data
I data miningI sentiment analysisI everything has to scale
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 7 / 12
From West to Far East
I new concept of harmonious color palette as a collective sentimentI crawl the internet for data and annotate it with metadataI reduce the information through categorizationI store and maintain knowledge on color palettes in the cloudI suggest small numbers of palettes though a simple application
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 8 / 12
Algorithm1. harvest images from the Internet
I cull icons, logos, people, . . .2. categorization
I quantize images lexically by color termsI weigh colors by area, saliency or regions of interest
3. annotateI collect simple metadata like date and geolocationI harvest keywords by parsing captions and surrounding text
4. store in a databaseI periodically update by repeating steps 1–3I add usage data from clientsI provide a feedback mechanism to the end-users
5. simple cloud applicationI query service by keywords or sample imageI query result is clustered (greyworld!) and top 7 ± 2 palettes are servedI collect feedback from end-users
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 9 / 12
Current status
I use Wikimedia imagesI color categorization using Moroney and xkcd corporaI analyzing robustnessI studying scalability and asymptotic behaviorI prototype: mobile application on TouchPad, Android, iPhone
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 10 / 12
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 11 / 12
Definition of sentimentI a feeling can be almost any subjective reaction or state—pleasant or
unpleasant, strong or mild, positive or negative—that is characterized byan emotional response (a feeling of insecurity; a feeling of pleasure).
I an emotion is a very intense feeling, which often involves a physical aswell as a mental response and implies outward expression or agitation (tobe overcome with emotion).
I passion suggests a powerful or overwhelming emotion, withconnotations of sexual love (their passion remained undiminished after30 years of marriage) or intense anger (a passion for revenge).
I there is more intellect and less feeling in sentiment, which is oftenapplied to an emotion inspired by an idea (political sentiments; antiwarsentiments). Sentiment also suggests a refined or slightly artificialfeeling (a speech marked by sentiment rather than passion).
I affect is a formal psychological term that refers to an observed emotionalstate (heavily sedated, he spoke without affect).
Beretta & Moroney (HP Labs) The Dark Side of the Color EI 2012 paper 8292-17 12 / 12
