Colour is Beautiful Tommy Li
Student project 2010 Edinburgh Napier University Module: Experiential Design The book that was never published
Colour is Beautiful by Tommy Li is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
to the beauty of colour
Declaration This book began with an idea. An idea that I cannot truly explain, forlorn since the time of man there are things that cannot truly explained mere by words. But that does not stop me. In a way colour is beautiful, colour is something that most of us experience on a day to day basis, and it should be something that we should grateful for.
However sometimes colour is neglected, taken for granted, not appreciated for its awe of beauty or simply misunderstood. My mission or shall we say my Raison d’être is to bring out the beauty of colour once again and of its inner truth. Let us explore and understand the meaning of colour once more, and how colour can shape and transform the world around us.
Rainbow, basic of colours consist of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet, rainbow is created by light and water drop in the air, reflecting at 42 angle within our human eyes, our main focus here is the colour itself, not the creation itself. All colours have multiple meanings, for a example Red can represent hot, love, violence, warfare or can even be lucky depending on the origin and culture of the person, an ideal explanation is Red is Cupid and the Devil.
Orange can be energy, warmth, balance, learning and also family. Yellow can resemble joy, reliability, rebelling evil, cowardice, illness and fun. Green can mean nature, jealousy, religion, good luck and death. Blue is trouble, rationality, virtue, cold and God’s. Although Indigo and blue is similar, they can share similarities or sometimes have completely different meanings such as wisdom, integrity, structure and order.
Violet can also mean multiple things such as empathy, respectable, impractical, dignity or cynical.
I would also like to mention Black and White, As black can represent formal, power and mystery and White can be new beginnings, innocence and purity. That was just some of the examples, Also colours may vary from person to person.
Now that you understand the depth of colour and of its meaning, how can we imply this in day to day life? I want to express how different time of the day, can affect the colour and emotional feeling of a place, and how one place can transform into another place to another at a different time of the day, all because of the impact colour has on us.
How can I achieve this? I have taken multiple photographs of the same scenes in Edinburgh at different time of the day for us to witness and compare how colour can transform a place, on my camera DSLR Nikon D5000.
So it begins.
Park Morning In this photograph colours are bright, yellows, orange, greens and grey. Typical colours that we can find in a park at autumn. The feeling and emotion of this photographs I find it cold and a bit lonely, as the leaves are falling to the floor as its coming to the end of autumn. The grey is to dominate and giving it this loneliness feeling.
Park Morning This photograph is of the same place as the pervious page. In this photograph the main colours are black and orange. The reason orange is present is because of the ISO in the camera. The colours have transformed this scenery into an different place, giving it different feelings, as it feels warmer because of the orange, and a little of mystery because of the black and also slightly romantic. The bright street light is leading you forward, giving this scenery a different feel.
Morning shot, of the royal mile in Edinburgh The colours in this photo is grey, and white cloudy sky. The Grey is making this photo very dull and boring, and also the long road is giving this lost and hopeless sense, as there is no guidance to the path. this is a very realistic and expected view of the royal mile of Edinburgh.
Night time royal mile In Edinburgh The Colour Pallets of this photo graph has change dramatically, the main colour balance now is dark grey and black. I would like to argue that this is a different place, because of the colour changes, and the emotions that is giving out. It feels like the city as changed and transformed into a different place. as it feels more romantic and mysterious. It has a different charm of its own. The lights on the side of the builds feel as if it is guiding the pavement.
Bench Morning The main colour focus in this photo is green grass, orange leaves and the blue sky. autumn of any typical park. it feels natural, peaceful and calm, because of the masses of green, and sunlight of the blue sky. The orange trees at the background is giving this photograph a indication of autumn is coming towards an end and the weather will be cold soon.
Bench Night In this photograph, The main colours are orange, dark green and yellow. This orange colour from the street light is making this photograph feel very comfortable safe and giving it warmth which is very different from the pervious page. However I think that because of the colour has completely changed, it has become a different place. The yellow car lights at the back is giving this photo a playful and magical sense.
Royal Mile Morning The colour pallets are grey and cloudy white because of the sky, It feels dull and it is a view that we all expect from any cities high street. There is also a selection of random colours mixes within the grey buildings, which makes the city lose its continuity, for example, the blue box on right hand side should not be there, it just feels odd.
Royal Mile Night During the night, the colour pallets have darken, therefore changing the look and theme of the place. It also feels warmer as the orange light at the back illuminate the high street. It city looks as if it has changed, all the colours have darken, even the blue box on the right, thus making everything match and fit well. If I have not been to this place before myself, I would quite easily mistaken this place as London or somewhere in Europe.
Alleyway Morning The colour pallets of this photo is brown grey and the yellow lines, I find that this photo is very interesting because all of the colours in this photo is professional alike, and the colour yellow is leading us down this path. This alleyway feels clean and professional alike once again but it is still somewhat an average few of day to day life of what a average alleyway is.
Alleyway Night During the night shot, The colour pallets have change once again, it has all darken, adding mystery to its feel but that I find is most special about this photo is that, the light is leading you through the darkness along with the yellow lines. Due to the reason because it is nightfall, all the colour has changed. This alleyway is once again transformed into a different place.
Cowgate Morning During the morning, The Colour pallet is based around black and grey with a hint of brown. The feel and looks of the photo looks gritty and dirty. But something I would like to point out that, this is a bar area which is closed in the morning and opens at night.
Cowgate Night During the night shot, the Colours has become more vibrant, the street lights Light up the entire street turning the street yellow because of the ISO on the camera, because of the yellow the photo looks more fun and pleasant to the eye. The fact that this is a bar area is now open at night the bar lights are switched on making it more playful, and because of the street lights are bright the gritty texture on the building walls it looks more smooth.
Bristol Square Conclusion, so we have learnt that every colour has different meanings and how the use of colour to create emotional impact on people but mostly how different time of the day can have a major impact on colour thus making one place in the morning to another place at night different although it is the same place after all. For example, Without my words Just take a look at Bristol square photograph on the next page.
Bristol Square I hoped that this book has opened your mind to the world of colour, and have shown you the inner beauty of colour. This book is just a stepping-stone, why not go out there and explore the world for yourself? I beg of you, just open your eyes once more.
Evaluation Firstly I would Like to point out, That the original idea was to create a book online and get it published and printed, but due to snow conditions, I cannot do as I wish I needed to improvise and use an E publishing website instead issuu.com. Without publishing a Book online, I cannot use the necessary software I require build the most perfect book that of my desire, therefore the spacing and alignment is ever so slightly off. The upmost highest quality of images that I have taken is in NEF RAW file, which most publishing software is not compatible with, In this case even Adobe In design, Therefore the images are not of its highest quality and its colour as well. The colours of the self-printed copy are slightly wrong. If there is more time the changes that I would like to have made is to use a book publishing service, and as I am a dyslectic student and English is my second language I would also like to have my spellings and grammar checked by a professional before I finalize everything, unfortunately that I did not. The thing that annoyed me the most is how I could not get the photographs exactly the same especially because I needed to compare them. The strong point about this document is that issuu.com is a visually pleasing website application website that can make a document interesting, This peace of work is visually strong and passionate. All the facts and theory are correct and there is a lot of depth in the meaning of colour.