Thoughts about Color

I have thought a lot about the subject of color during my work as a designer and also during the development of my courses, although I have always intuitively avoided any kind of colorfulness. I learned this approach from my typography teacher at the time, Roman Skarabis: for him, the basis of composition was black and white, but a specified tone of color could be added to symbolize the subject being depicted. This radical way of working is very effective, as it produces timeless aesthetics that radiate an enormous elegance and clarity. To me, black and white design always seems interesting and mysterious and I almost always feel very comfortable with it.

Nevertheless, I have tried to bring up the subject of color for my students, but have never really succeeded. The color systems I implemented with code somehow seemed cold and mathematical. And so I always ended up with the black-and-white aesthetic that I had intuitively chosen.

Martin Lorenz, who from my perspective is brilliant at handling colors, recently gave me an exciting thought: Any systematization and calculation of color is probably insufficient. Color sensation is subjective and eludes logic in an inexplicable way.

With these thoughts I leave the reader of this text alone for the time being in the hope that he or she will find his or her own way of dealing with colors.