I used to be disgusted Now I try to be amused But since their wings have got rusted You know the angels wanna wear my red shoes — Elvis Costello, (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes Red is the most dominant and eye-catching color in the spectrum. To even say its name is to …
Though the color purple been democratized these days –- almost every mass-produced clothing item and stuffed toy is available in some shade of it –- it was once very rare and restricted to royalty. This was because its dye depended on a rare, arcane ingredient: the slimy secretions of the murex sea snail. For centuries, …
Orange is a color that literally didn’t exist in the English language before the 16th century. When people wanted to describe an orange hue, they used word composites like yellow-red or red-gold, or sometimes saffron. Only after Portuguese merchants began to import orange trees to Europe did the shade receive a name. In France the …
Like the color green, the color yellow has a split personality. Yellow, and its cousin gold, can mean wealth, sunlight, cheer and happiness, even life itself. But it is also the color of sweat, feces and urine, cowardice and betrayal, just as green’s sour side is that of poison, jealousy, snot, and pus. Unlike green, …
Now that Spring is here, it’s entirely appropriate to talk about shades of green, and how they are named. Pictured above is a set of green PMS colors, once the standard for the printing industry. Basic colors of ink were mixed together to create the colors in the squares, which were referred to by …