A simple question and a super easy-to-use website to take part to the new project by G. F. Smith, Britain’s foremost supplier of specialist papers to the creative industries: What’s your favourite colour?
Go to worldsfavouritecolour.com and choose yours, to contribute to the definition of the new colour shade that will be inserted in the Colorplan and printed for Hull, home town of the company and UK City of Culture in 2017.
The decision to do this survey online really allow people around the world to respond to this (apparently) simple question. I say “apparently” because it seems easy to answer, on an impulse, but to do so we must sincerely look inward. I immediately liked the idea and I’m sure I am not the only one: our favourite colour is something that represents us, which makes us feel ourselves and that inspires us every day.
Crossing cultures and continents, national borders and language barriers, age brackets and social categories, the project is one of the most ambitious and wide-ranging investigations into colour preference ever conducted, and the insights it will generate have the potential to change the way we think about colour.
The World’s Favourite Colour Project: Camille Walala / photo Toby Coulson
Famous people working in the fields of architecture, fashion and design have already been involved, with a series of videos that will be released in the coming months and that were photographed in front of a backdrop of their favourite colour by photographer Toby Coulson: the creative director of Mulberry Johnny Coca, the designers Osman Yousefzada and Bethan Laura Wood, the culinary designers Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, the hair stylist Sam McKnight and artists Richard Woods and Camille Walala (one of my favourite of moment!). Each of them was asked to explain how the colour is an integral part of their lives and of their profession.
https://vimeo.com/195632297
Analysis of historical and future data
During the Chicago World’s Fair, in 1893, 4000 participants were asked what their favourite colour was. Since then, this kind of research has been repeated periodically, at the initiative of different institutions and each time the preferred colour by the majority appeared to be a shade of blue. Similarly, shades between yellow and green seem to be the most unpopular.
Universities and research centers have tried to explain the unconscious motivations of this preference, and even at the end of this research there will be an extensive analysis of the data, to try to dispel some prejudices and explore other issues related to the perception of colour and its interpretation. The project by G. F. Smith aims first of all to answer the following questions:
- Do colour preferences change across ages?
- Are boys really blue and girls really pink?
- Are hotter countries drawn to warmer or cooler colours?
- Is there is a link between colour preference and decisiveness? (as indicated by user response times)
- Is colour preference culturally determined, or is it an innate human trait?
Do you like the idea? You just have to participate then!
You have time until March 2017: the World’s favourite colour will be announced in July during the Paper City trade fair and one of the participants will be given the privilege of having its name given to the chosen colour!
And my favourite colour? I have no doubt: the peach rose behind my back in the profile picture a dear friend took me in July during Weekendoit!
Follow the project on the Facebook page and Instagram too.
