December 31, 2008
By Leatrice Eiseman for Kate's Paperie in Manhattan, NY
GIFTS IN COLOR
We look to Mother Nature as she truly is the best color instructor.
Giving a gift is an act of kindness—one that should be enjoyed by both recipient and the giver.
We have all had the experience of opening a gift and feeling that rush of pleasure especially if that
gift is in a favorite color. But how do we know what colors will evoke an emotional connection? The
answer is that we look to Mother Nature as she truly is the best color instructor.
Nature’s colors do appear to vary during the course of a day, because of changing light in the
atmosphere, forming various ‘palettes.’ In the earliest hours, a dewy ‘wetness’ permeates the
atmosphere. The natural elements of water and air are a strong influence on the predominantly
cool blue undertones of what is called the ‘Sunrise’ Colortime™ palette. This palette literally sparkles
with jewel tones such as amethyst, emerald, royal blue and turquoise. There are some warm colors
included, but they are pure and cooled down, like sparkling Chardonnay or luscious berries.
At the opposite extreme, is the Sunset Colortime palette. This is the time of day when colors take
on a golden, mellow, ‘drier’ quality, eventually exploding into the fiery colors of Sunset. The natural
elements of fire and earth light up this palette with festive reds, glowing ambers, hazy magentas and
vibrant corals. Zesty pesto greens and periwinkle blues add a tasteful touch.
Nestled between Sunrise and Sunset is the Sunlight Colortime palette. These are the hours that the
sun shines at its brightest, rendering the colors it lights on a bit more muted and sun drenched. All
of the natural elements are represented here, with ‘natural’ a key word as all shadings are subtle.
Think delicious shades of grape, peach, strawberry and bisque, balanced by placid blues and willow
greens.
Mother Nature also provides a group of colors that are found frequently in nature, so that our eyes
are accustomed to seeing them in combination with many other colors. There are 18 of these Crossover
Colors™ , as they are called, among them, the black of night, sandy beach beige, stone gray and the
ubiquitous signal color, true red. Within this palette are also the colors that have grown to symbolize
the concept of “sustainability’. This eco-awareness theme rings true for so many people today as it speaks
to the preservation of earth reflected symbolically in the rich browns, tans and taupes. The purity of water
is expressed both in the sky and ocean depth blues, while the need for solar energy is represented by
sunny yellow. And most importantly is pineneedle green, the color most connected to the preservation
of nature.
Taking a bit of extra time and thinking about the personal coloring of the gift recipient can be a vital
clue to your success in gift selection as most people tend to prefer colors that blend with their natural
coloring. For example, have you noticed that redheads, people with golden blonde or brown hair with
amber brown eyes invariably gravitate to earthtones? They are the golden Sunsets. People with really
Try to use these colorful guidelines the next time you purchase a gift and watch the “giftee’s” eyes really
light up!
Visit Lee's others websites at, www.colorexpert.com and www.morealivewithcolor.com
December 29, 2008
Excerpt from
What Your iPod Says About You
Forbes.com
Elizabeth Woyke and Brian Caulfield
Apple's iPod sports many personalities. Who do you want to be today?
Apple recently rolled out brightly hued versions of the nano handsets, including a red iPod nano
and iPod shuffle. Apple's ads push the colorful little music players with the simple tag line "nano-chromatic."
Apple was the first company to realize that gizmo players are as much about personal expression
as they are about function. More recently, companies cranking out mobile phones have caught on,
too. "Phones are becoming reflections of us as individuals and an important way to express our
personalities," says Ehtisham Rabbani, vice president of product strategy and marketing for LG.
It's a sharp contrast to the drab shades most consumer electronics sported just a few years ago.
Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, says tech companies, with
the exception of forward-thinking Apple, largely ignored her color recommendations up through
the '90s. "They didn't understand the impact of color--they felt it had nothing to do with their
devices," she recalls.
That's changing. The color trend in cellphones ramped up in mid-2007. Consider the Samsung
Juke, which Verizon released in October 2007 in red, aqua and royal blue. Phones like the sporty
Juke, which appeal to younger consumers, are often first to get the color treatment. Nokia just
announced two new colors--passionate purple and graphite--for its fashion-conscious Supernova
line of phones in Europe.
Handsets that target older customers, such as pricey smart phones, are more likely to be offered
in more conservative colors, says Sapna Tahliani, a device marketing manager for Verizon Wireless.
That's starting to change, though. Research In Motion's BlackBerry, long considered the workhorse
of smart phones, now comes in pink, red, amethyst, gold and--in the U.K.--a reddish orange shade
called "sunset."
That's because our emotional reactions to color guide our shopping decisions, says Eiseman. That has
handset manufacturers studying color psychology, investing in materials research and consulting color
forecasts.
Of course, no one knows that better than Apple. It's iPod nano now comes in nine colors. However,
when it comes to adding color to mobile phones, Apple lags behind. While a myriad of colorful third party
cases and covers are available, Apple's phones still come with just a basic black, or white, back.
Apple isn't the only phone maker going for a basic look. In a sign that neutrals aren't totally passé,
Rabbani says black is LG's most "stable" color across all demographics. Among younger consumers, light
blue is increasingly hot. "Blue is a safe color with appeal across gender and age groups," he notes. "Light
blue stands out; it's the new pink." LG relaunched the Chocolate, a sleek music player/phone, earlier this
year in a pale blue.
Fittingly, blue is America's favorite color, says Eiseman. "Consumer products often include blue in some
form because a certain percentage of the population will always respond to it," she adds.
Says Eiseman, "Today, if you don't do something that involves color, you're seen as very backward or
very boring." Clearly, that's a message few people want to send about themselves.
December 21, 2008
A recent blog post to Pantone's colour of the year choice for 2009
From tenacityworks.com
Blog entry: COLOUR OF NOW
So Pantone just chose their colour of the year for 2009. Interesting choice… “14-0848
Mimosa, a warm, engaging yellow, is the color of the year for 2009. In a time of economic uncertainty and political change, optimism is paramount and no other color expresses hope
and reassurance more than yellow.”
Read up a bit about the psychology of colour and apparently yellow is “considered an
optimistic color, people lose their tempers more often in yellow rooms, and babies will cry
more. It is the most difficult color for the eye to take in, so it can be overpowering if overused. Yellow enhances concentration, hence its use for legal pads. It also speeds metabolism.”
Maybe blue would have been a better choice for our times as apparently people are more productive in blue rooms. Studies also show weightlifters are able to handle heavier weights
in blue gyms.
I suppose it would have been a bit of a downer if they chose Cool Gray 10C.
Lee's comment to the post
As the director of the Pantone Color Institute and the person involved in choosing Mimosa,
I can tell you the choices are thoughtful and meaningful– not just an arbitrary choice. At
this point in time people need reasons to try to be optimistic and yellow is invariably the
color that people (in our studies) think of as representing hope and good cheer. They do
not lose their tempers more in yellow rooms– that is erroneous information, there are no
studies to back it up– it has become an urban legend that is false. Leatrice Eiseman
December 18, 2008
NPR - New York
National Public Radio's New York affiliate.
Interviewed by Brian Lehrer.
Brian: What have you seen happening in the last year due to economy?
Lee: More neutral colors are being used, but what we’re finding now is that
this may be true only of high-ticket items. Also, what we’re seeing is that
people are using more color as accent.
Brian: How do you know that trend towards neutral palette is due to housing
bust?
Lee: Conventional wisdom has always said to use neutral colors, but we have
seen a change. With all informational shows out there, people are learning how
to use color. More color is actually being used now that makes your home more
memorable, so you should do something memorable with color in your house.
Brian: What’s the hot color for next year?
Lee: Pantone has named Mimosa Yellow as the Color of the Year and there’s a
very good reason for that. Every color has an emotional attachment and with
yellow we have optimism, sunshine. It’s very cheerful but not overwhelming.
It’s a beautiful, mellow yellow.
December 15, 2008
Setting A New Tone
By Donna Sapolin
FLYP MEDIA
Visit www.flypmedia.com/issues/19/#5/1
to hear Lee describe color forecasting, taste and psychology.
FLYP (www.flypmedia.com) is an online
magazine that offers a window on the issues
shaping America and, by extension, the
world. FLYP aims to exploit the full palette
of available web tools to provide users with
an engaging, easy-to-navigate and enriching
multimedia experience.
December 11, 2008
Mental Floss Magazine
A portion from
How Cereal Transformed American Culture
by Ian Lender
Making Red Blood Redder
In many ways, the cereal flake is the perfect consumer product. It’s easy to
produce, easy to sell, and surprisingly lucrative. To this day, cereal comes with
an eye-popping profit margin of 50 percent. These merits became clear to Charles
Post, a failed suspender salesman who moved to Battle Creek in 1895. Post began
selling knock-off versions of Kellogg’s products with a twist of his own—advertising.
At the time, advertising was associated with snake-oil salesmen and con artists. But
Post, who had a background in sales, didn’t mind drizzling a little snake oil on his product.
He published pamphlets with titles such as “The Road To Wellville” and claimed his
cereal, Grape-Nuts, could cure appendicitis, improve one’s IQ, and even “make red blood
redder.” By 1903, he was clearing $1 million a year.
Across town, Dr. Kellogg refused to sully The San’s reputation with heathen advertising,
and his profits suffered as a result. W.K., however, had no such qualms and set out to
emulate Post. In his first national campaign, he told women to “Wink at your grocer, and
see what you get.” (Answer: a free box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.) Within a year, he’d sold
1 million cases of cereal. With the leading cereal makers embracing such unabashed
hucksterism, it was clear that cereal’s connection to its fundamentalist roots had come to
an end.
Thinking Outside the Box
All across America, the eyes of investors lit up with dollar signs, and would-be cereal
barons descended on Battle Creek like locusts. By 1911, 107 brands of corn flakes were
being made in Battle Creek alone.
But the cereal business had one major drawback—there was little substantive difference
between brands. To stand out from the crowd, manufacturers realized that they had to
focus more on the outside of the box than on what was inside. Some tried decorating
their products with adjectives, creating names like University Brand Daintily Crisped
Flaked Corn. Others competed to appear the healthiest. Tryabita, for example, was infused
with celery flavor because, well, it sounded healthy.
But the real winner was a cereal called Force. Its mascot, Sunny Jim, was a strutting,
top-hatted gentleman who became so popular in newspapers and magazines that other
cereal makers rushed to create their own mascots. For a cereal called Elijah’s Manna,
Charles Post even tried putting a picture of the prophet on the label. Although the
product was eventually pulled, one industry ground rule had been established: Every
box needs a character.
Before long, cereal makers had an insatiable appetite for finding the right mascot,
regardless of the cost. During the Depression, Post Toasties decided to use cartoon
animals on its boxes and paid its cartoonist $1.5 million in the first year. That artist
was Walt Disney, and he used the earnings to build the Disney empire.
The Children Are the Future
Cereal’s total reliance on advertising meant that it was essential for companies to
keep up with new forms of media. Quaker Oats, for example, hitched its sales to the
rise of radio in the 1920s by giving away more than 1 million radios as part of a
promotion. Cereal companies were also quick to buy up radio stations and produce
radio shows. For the most part, they churned out dramas and gossip shows aimed
at housewives. But a radical shift in demographics came in 1936, thanks to a boy
named Skippy.
A Dennis the Menace type who frequently interrupted his adventures to extol the
virtues of Wheaties, Skippy was the first cereal character directly marketed to children.
As it turned out, kids ate him up, and cereal producers learned an important lesson:
Children are suckers. The flood of kid-friendly, cereal-shilling characters that followed
reads like a Who’s Who of American iconography, including the Lone Ranger, Dick
Tracy, and Buck Rogers. By the 1960s, cereal advertisers were devoting 90 percent of
their budgets to reaching children.
In the process of targeting the young, cereal companies also realized that kids don’t
care about their colons. They want sugar. Lots of sugar. In 1939, a Philadelphia heater
salesman named Jim Rex created the first sugared cereal, called Ranger Joe Popped
Wheat Honnies. Ironically, he designed the cereal to minimize the amount of sugar
children consumed. He reasoned that if he lightly presweetened his product, kids wouldn’t
add more sugar on top. He was wrong, and his good intentions were lost on bigger
companies. After Ranger Joe sales skyrocketed, manufacturers started producing cereals
such as Sugar Smacks, which contained a shocking 56 percent sugar.
How did cereal companies reconcile this with their original commitment to the health
movement? Taking a page out of Post’s playbook, they declared that sugar wasn’t bad
for you because it gave you the fuel you needed to start your day. With trusted radio
personalities extolling the “energy-giving” virtues of cereal, impressionable kids and
their frazzled parents rushed to stores.
TV Nation
Television took advertising for sugar cereals to a new level, and the master of the new
medium was an ad man named Leo Burnett. He invented TV programs specifically designed
to entertain children and sell Kellogg’s products. Much like Skippy a decade before, Burnett’s characters would turn to the screen in the middle of a show and pitch the merits of a
particular brand. There was nothing subtle about it. Howdy Doody, Roy Rogers, Andy
Griffith, Rin Tin Tin, the Beverly Hillbillies, Yogi Bear, and Fred Flintstone all became television
icons because they were good at selling cereal.
Also at Burnett’s urging, cereal companies invested heavily in early television technology.
(They still do; cereal is the second-largest advertiser on television today, behind automobiles.)
The financial backing let them shape the medium to suit their needs—namely, adding color.
Burnett was one of the earliest believers in motivational psychology and understood that
colors appealed to kids and moms subliminally. When color TV became a reality, he
persuaded Kellogg to use anthropomorphized cartoon animals as mascots. He thought
animation would make for better, more colorful commercials. The first mascot they produced
was Tony the Tiger, whose meteoric success was followed by hundreds of other cartoon icons.
Burnett’s advertising style was so effective that cereal sales continued to rise every year, unlike most products at the grocery store. After a while, parents and child psychologists became
concerned that the ads were a little too effective. In the late 1960s, consumer advocates
claimed that using cartoon characters to target children was overly manipulative, if not
unethical. Eventually, in 1990, they forced Congress to pass a law banning TV characters
from pitching directly to children in the middle of a show. Protective measures aside, cereal
had strayed far from its wholesome origins. While Dr. Jackson’s dream of displacing pork
chops from the breakfast table had become a reality, his cereal wasn’t what it used to be.
Bitten by the fangs of consumerism, Granula had transformed into Count Chocula in the
course of a century.
December 9, 2008
Paint the town red
(without blowing your green)
Chicago Tribune
By Wendy Donahue
Tribune Reporter
The holiday party circuit looks subdued this year, but that doesn't mean you should.
More than ever, your fellow recessionistas need you to help make spirits bright. That
means adding pops of color to the standard-issue black palette - while retaining some fiscal sobriety.
"The psychological boost is a good idea," said Leatrice Eiseman, director of the Pantone
Color Institute and author of "More Alive With Color" Even if you are going to go for the
black dress because it's practical and something you already have in your closet, you
should look to accessorize it - whether with a necklace or belt or even shoes in a color -
with something that's going to lift you. And what better time to do it than during holidays
when you can wear brighter colors and it can look beautiful?
December 4, 2008
Yellow expected as a bright spot for 2009
By SAMANTHA CRITCHELL
AP Fashion Writer
This undated photo provided
by Pfaltzgraff Everyday shows
a dinnerware pattern called
'Palermo' from the 'Pfaltzgraff
Everyday' collection. Pantone,
which provides color standards
to design industries, specifically
cites mimosa, a vibrant shade
illustrated by the flowers of the
mimosa tree as well as the
brunch-favorite cocktail, as its
top shade of the new year, but
the company, in general, believes
the public will embrace many
tones of optimistic yellow.
(AP Photo/Pfaltzgraff Everyday)
NEW YORK - Enough gloom and doom: There's a prediction from a leading color source
that cheerful and sunny yellow will be the influential color of 2009.
Pantone, which provides color standards to design industries, specifically cites "mimosa,"
a vibrant shade of yellow illustrated by the flowers of some mimosa trees as well as the
brunch-favorite cocktail, as its top shade of the new year. In general, Pantone expects
the public to embrace many tones of optimistic yellow.
"I think it's just the most wonderful symbolic color of the future," says Leatrice Eiseman,
executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. "It's invariably connected to warmth,
sunshine and cheer - all the good things we're in dire need of right now."
In the spring fashion collections previewed earlier in the fall for retailers and editors,
pops of yellow brightened the runways of Carolina Herrera - who called her favorite
shade marigold - Badgley Mischka, Zac Posen and Michael Kors, among others. Kors
even included a retro yellow polka-dot bikini that clearly harkened back to a more
upbeat time.
The fashion world first embraced orange a few years ago and that has evolved into
yellow, which had already been gaining popularity in the home market, too.
"People know yellow lightens up the atmosphere," Eiseman says.
Home-goods companies based in Paris and Milan, Italy, have already been heavily
influenced by yellow, says Tom Mirabile, vice president of global trends and design at
Lifetime Brands, Inc., whose portfolio includes Cuisinart, Farberware and Pfaltzgraff.
It helps that it looks good in florals and has a close association with nature, a driving
force in the marketplace right now, and it complements current favorites green and
purple. (In 2008, "blue iris," a purple-tinged blue, was color of the year.)
"I'd say you should get used to seeing yellow in places you're not used to seeing it,
"Eiseman says.
December 3, 2008
As Seen in MacLife magazine
by Michelle Delio
How Pantone's Color Expert Colors Your World
Eiseman formulates her color predictions
through research and staying on top of
societal and cultural shifts.
Don’t tell Leatrice Eiseman that yellow agitates adults and makes babies cry.
“After hearing that story once too often, I tracked its source and discovered it was
based on false research,” she says. “Yellow evokes sunshine, warmth, and happiness—not arguments or crying.”
What people really think about color is important to Eiseman—please call her
“Lee”—head of the Eiseman Center for Color Information and Training and executive
director of the Pantone Color Institute. Her job is to choose the hues that will be wildly
fashionable next season or next year, as well as the colors that will compel consumers
to buy her clients’ products.
Eiseman doesn’t spend her working days locked up in a room crunching data or
aiming darts at a brilliantly hued board to see where they land. Rather, she identifies
color trends by synthesizing history, current events, psychology, marketing principles,
fine art, pop art, and street fashion, along with all the information culled from her own
color surveys.
“Right now, I’m researching the color preferences prevalent during previous recessions,”
Eiseman says. “What I’m finding is that neutrals are preferred during economic downturns, especially for big-ticket items. People don’t want to invest in trendy-colored items when
times are tough. They’re looking for stability and longevity.”
Nevertheless, Eiseman says that flooding the market with beige items isn’t necessarily
the right approach right now. Instead, manufacturers should focus on coming up with
new ways of combining neutrals with livelier colors to “tweak the consumer’s eye and
spark interest.
How to Avoid a Marketing Blood Bath.
In the never-ending search for the new and exciting, it’s important for companies
to understand how their target audiences tend to respond to specific colors. Some
years ago, Shiseido hired Eiseman to consult on colors planned for use in the Japanese
company’s American line of bath and beauty products. The first thing that caught
Eiseman’s attention was the rejuvenating bath salts tinted bright scarlet. In the
States, red-tinted water in the tub would likely conjure up visions of a blood bath,
likely to appeal only to gloomy goths. Apparently the Japanese aren’t in the habit of
offing themselves in the bath, but Eiseman says it wasn’t easy to convince Shiseido
to go with a soft orange (though the peach-colored bath salts ultimately became a
best-seller).
Eiseman suggests “pungent colors” in this spread from Color: Messages & Meanings, a
Pantone Color resource guide that she wrote.
Cultural issues are easier to deal with than having a color scheme rejected because the
CEO (or his spouse) hates a particular color.
“It’s not about what you or I happen to like,” says Lee. “You may despise green, but that’s
not a valid reason to banish its use from the product packaging, unless you are also the
target audience. And even then, you can’t just pick whatever hues appeal to you with no consideration of what those colors are communicating.”
Apple's Color Code.
Eiseman says Apple is a company that really knows how to use color effectively.
“Apple has revolutionized industrial design and made powerful technology personal
through the use of color,” says Eiseman, who took a consulting gig with a major PC
company some months before Apple released the first Bondi Blue iMac. She suggested
that they release computers with colorful cases, but the company felt that no one would
be interested.
For her part, Eiseman is a devoted Apple-tech enthusiast. She has two iMacs and a
number of Apple laptops in her collection of home and office computers. She uses
Keynote for all of her presentations, and her assistant, Bobbi, uses Leopard’s Spaces
feature as well as CoverFlow to create online training materials. Eiseman also uses iPhoto
to organize the image collections she relies on for inspiration and uses her iPhone to
syndicate blog updates from anywhere in the world. She says she loves iTunes because
“sometimes, mindless entertainment is the most essential application of all.”
The "Starbucks Phenomenon."
Eiseman stresses that color associations aren’t set in stone. For example, not too long
ago brown was a low-rent color associated with dirt and introverted people. Then, in
what Lee calls the “Starbucks phenomenon,” café culture became popular in the United
States and we developed a whole new language and set of associations for brown, which
is now affiliated with words like “rich,” “soothing,” “robust,” and “earthy,” as well as
environmental awareness, comfort, and luxury.
“It’s a whole new world for brown now,” Eiseman says, adding that the other colors
to watch in 2009 include fuchsia and other rosy hues, purple as a power color for men,
and the clear, clean colors used in Japanese animation (Eiseman just designed an anime
color palette for Pantone).
With all the colors that are available to us, Eiseman says she’s puzzled by the proclivity
that some artsy types have for dressing head-to-toe in black.
“Granted, black is an empowering color,” she says “And it’s an easy color; there’s no
need to put a look together. But I feel that creative people who dress all in black all
the time are missing the opportunity to hone their skills by working with color on a
personal level. Try pushing the black to the back of the closet for awhile, break out
some color, and see what happens.”
For info on Eiseman, check out colorexpert.com.
