Colorblind
Typeset in: Garamond by Claude Garamond Franklin Gothic Medium by Morris Fuller Benton Color Theory by: Josef Albers Color Blind Experience by: We Are Colorblind Concept and Design by: Richard Stock Produced by: Champlain College Published in 2017
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We Are Colorblind
The Interaction of Color
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A color has many faces — the relativity of color A color has many faces, and 1 color can be made to appear as 2 different colors. In the original design for the study IV-1, horizontal dark blue and yellow stripes were on a flap which could be lifted to show that a vertical stripe of ochre is the same at the top as at the bottom. Here it is almost unbelievable that the upper small and the lower small squares are part of the same paper strip and therefore are the same color. And no normal human eye is able to see both squares—alike.
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When my son Andrew was four years old, his preschool teacher told me that he was having trouble understanding simple patterns. I was already concerned that he couldn’t always identify colors correctly.
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For the study of color intensity or brightness, we selected from 8 tints, shades, or tones the 1 most typical for each hue, and presented it as such through an emphasis on placement. For a “fair� comparison, all samples appear in the same amount and the same shape. As stated before, personal preferences and prejudices will result in diverging votes, or selections.
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The optometrist showed my four-year-old a book of pictures with shapes. These shapes would apparently not be visible to the colorblind. When they were finished, the doctor informed me that Andrew was red-green color deficient, or colorblind.
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Reversed grounds 1 color looks like 2—or: 3 colors appear as 2. In plate VI-3 when you hold the yellow ground at the left, the X-form on it appears violetish and the X-form on the violet ground looks yellowish. To show that both X’s are the same color, see where they meet in the middle at the top. The question that this study presents: What color is able to play such complementary roles in one show?
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From my experience with my two older children, colors were an integral part of the early education curriculum. I wanted to know if Andrew would be at a disadvantage when he started kindergarten. I wanted to know how he saw the world.
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For instance, he can tell you the fire truck is red, but if you ask him to draw a picture of it, he could easily choose a brown crayon. Andrew can usually recognize a vibrant red or green but not lighter or duller hues.
3 colors appear as 2. On brown and violet grounds, the center squares look like the grounds exchanged, violet and brown. But they are of the same color, precisely alike, and at the same time refer to the neighboring grounds. The true color of the 2 central squares therefore becomes unrecognizable, as it loses its identity.
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Additive and subtractive mixture On both sides, each of the 3 rectangles overlaps the 2 others only once. By looking transparent (in fact, they are opaque) they produce in our perception illusions of mixture, in three steps of either light or shade—a gradual increase in light at the left but a decrease in light at the right. With their contrasting results of gaining and of losing light, these studies explain a basic difference in mixture, that is, mixture in direct color—which is light—and its opposite, mixture in reflected color—produced by pigment.
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Andrew made me a Valentine with a beautiful heart colored with forest green. He drew a pickle with a brown crayon. Sometimes those rosy faces he loves to draw are actually lime green. If you don’t know your child is colorblind, this kind of artwork can be puzzling.
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Transparency and space-illusion This deserves recognition as an unusually precise study of a mixture of 2 colors in a gradation of 9 equidistant steps of red—equidistant by their proper increase of yellow content. It presents itself most actively when seen with the little dot in the upper left corner. Then the gradual upward increase in light reads more decisively than the equally precise increase in red in the opposite direction.
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How many times already was he told he was wrong when he chose a color, or completed a pattern, or moved to a space on a game board?
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A similar effect is named after Wilhelm von Bezold (1837-1907), a meteorologist in Berlin, who discovered that certain strong colors, when evenly distributed, changed entirely the effect of his rug designs, which were his avocation.
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A child’s natural reaction would be, “I must not be smart enough to know that.” A colorblind child has no frame of reference to say, “Maybe I can’t see that color,” or “Maybe those are different colors that look the same to me.”
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I was surprised to learn that Andrew’s teacher, and almost all the other teachers I’ve spoken to since, knew very little about color blindness. A veteran teacher told me, “I’ve never had a colorblind child.” About one out of twelve boys and one out of 200 girls are color blind. I thought, you’ve probably had one every year!
Upstairs in plate XIV-1 we have 4 red squares at the left, making one square, and 4 blue squares at the right, also making a square. Each has its darkest squares on the left. In the top row of each the strongest contrast exists between the left and right squares, and they are separated by the hardest boundaries.
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An unusual solution. Besides its representation in 4 circles and its subordination under a severe restriction—that is, a precisely repeated subdivision of the 4 circles—it demonstrates clearly the extreme cases of connection and separation within and among circles: The inner centrifugal enclosure—cohesion—against the outer centrifugal enclosure—adhesion.
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I asked him if he ever had trouble with Chemistry experiments and he implied it was a matter of course to depend on a lab partner. I asked him if he told his Chemistry teacher about his color vision and he said, “No.” He probably didn’t want to deal with the queries that would entail or pronounce himself “different” from everyone else.
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2 gradation scales for a comparison of arithmetical and geometric progression in mixture of color (here red and black). Both are to be read downward, thus beginning with red. To the upper red is mixed successively 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 equal amounts of black, as has been recommended by M. E. Chevreul and which presents an arithmetical progression, but only physically, not perceptually. To the same red is added successively 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 equal measures of black, this presenting a geometric progression— following the Web-Fechner Law.
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Among the many professions I know the colorblind have had are: salesperson, engineer, computer programmer, journalist, principal, and teacher (including an art teacher!). One woman told me her father worked for a cosmetics company. Apparently, he could tell the shades of lipstick better than anyone.
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Here is a figure extending sidewards and with many sharp corners. Although all shapes are similar triangles, clearly constructed—with pointed corners and straight lines—we cannot be sure in the top figure whether we see, at a short distance, several figures or only 1. And it is not possible to count all the triangles, much less their corners. The contours vanish because the 2 colors are of the same light intensity. Only when the triangles are seen against a white background is it revealed that there are in fact 11 triangles with 21 corners.
If your child is colorblind: Don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t matter. Make sure the teachers know. Start with a letter to the classroom teacher, explaining your child’s problem colors.
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The Equilateral Triangle The first of the 3 trios, containing the strongest color contrasts, appears most separated, at the extreme ends—in the 3 corners. Yellow and blue appropriately hold the base. And red occurs high off the apex, again separated but in a middle place. The less opposite secondaries are in the middle of the outer edges, and the closest, or at least different, tertiaries naturally meet still more in the center.
Communicate with your child honestly and matterof-factly. Keep a sense of humor. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just a different view of it.
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