

Ask HN: Measuring the Aesthetic Quality of a Set of Colors? - fp

For a side project I would like to automatically determine the aesthetic quality of a set of colors. I was wondering if there are metrics by which I could measure it.<p>For instance if I had these two 'color schemes':<p><pre><code>  http://beta.dailycolorscheme.com/archive/2006/09/20
  http://beta.dailycolorscheme.com/archive/2006/09/19
</code></pre>
could I objectively (for some value of objective) tell which one is 'better'? The only metrics I found on the net so far seem to be rather ad-hoc measurements of how well the set of colors is 'analogic' or 'complementary'. Since I want to write a program to make the measurements, a more structured apporach would help me.<p>Do you have any pointers or ideas for this problem, HN? Thank you!
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diiq
This is going to be a little more technical than I'd like, but it should be
concrete enough to implement on a computer.

So, start with the color sphere: a unit sphere, and each point in the volume
represents a color. Around the equater is arranged the hues, roygbiv. Moving
north or south changes value, by adding white or black, respectively. Moving
inwards toward the north-south axis reduces saturation; the exact center of
the sphere is a perfectly neutral 50% gray.

Traditionally a set of colors is supposed to be 'harmonious' together if, when
one constructs a polyhedron inside the color sphere, with each vertex being
one of the chosen colors, the polytope formed has it's center of balance at
the center of the sphere.

That is a 'designer' set of colors --- emotionally flat but visually pleasing.
Emotional content is added by moving the centroid off center, charging the
whole color set with a color 'cast'.

This definition, of course, fails when monochromatic schemes are chosen, but
monochromatic schemes are almost always highly emotional unless a suitable
accent color is chosen (usually a complementary, so as to move the COB to the
center of the sphere).

For more information, read Itten, Keely, Albers, &c.

~~~
hoopadoop
How can we know if this method of choosing colours results in colours
'aesthetically better' than, say, generating rgb values by flipping a coin?

~~~
diiq
Re: gray. Yes. I didn't say it was a medium gray, I said it was a neutral gray
(neither warm nor cool). But you're absolutely right, this model is merely an
approximation of perceptual color. You could instead build a complicated
manifold representing perceptual color space, and define a criterion for a
cloud of points in that manifold that resulted in pleasing colors, but it
would be a lot more work than using the sphere, and you'd not gain that much,
I don't think.

Re: how do we know? Well, mostly this system is based on the work of a number
of thinkers, starting with Goethe and running through Munsell, Itten,
Kandinsky, and a bunch of others, who spent a great deal of time putting
colored squares next to each other. They discovered physiological effects of
color, like simultaneous contrast. They attempted to learn about psychological
effects of color. They admitted that, while some color combinations are
attractive only to individuals, there were other sets that seem to have
universal appeal. One of the things that those universal combinations had in
common was that they centered themselves on the color wheel.

We know, more or less, by science. It is a largely empirical question (put
some colors together, see if people like it). You can repeat the experiments
yourself, if you like --- you asked 'how can we know'? Either take their word,
or try it yourself.

And finally, in reply to the my use of the word 'emotional' --- if I were to
say that colors whose center of balance is far from the center axis of the
sphere are more surprising, and less comfortable, is that acceptable? I don't
mean to say that red and green don't evoke different emotions than yellow and
purple --- but they are both comfortable, obvious, familiar combinations;
while, say, magenta and brown is less comfortable and takes more work to
accept.

~~~
hoopadoop
Less by science, then.

It seems like a particular combination of colours, say a particular red and
green, may be a comfortable, obvious, familiar combination right now, in a
specific culture - but 100 years ago may have been shocking and outrageous.
And, who knows, in 100 hundred years may again be 'less comfortable'.

Goethe, Munsell, Itten, Albers, Kandinsky may have spent a great deal of time
putting coloured squares next to each other, but none of them ever conducted
anything like an objective scientific study on the 'aesthetic quality' of a
palette. Goethe's theory was based heavily on the work of Aristotle. Munsell's
views on aesthetics seemed laughably conservative at the time, let alone now.
Neither Albers or Kandinsky, ever put foward a 'theory' for evaluating
harmonious colours. Albers said that each colour 'goes' equally well with any
other colour. Itten & Kandinsky were obsessed by the occult 'meanings' of
colours. Certainly they were genius colourists.. but scientists?

~~~
diiq
Absolutely true. They were all mystics and goofballs. But I'm not justifying
the mysticism. I never mentioned 'blond types' and 'black types', I didn't
touch on the 'passion' of red, or the 'purity' of white.

I'm talking about the bits that seem to have held up after 100 years. The bits
these men found from observation, rather than mysticism. This is, more or
less, the method taught to design and art students today. You can see it in
paintings from around the world, and going back hundreds of years.
Simultaneous contrast exists and is physiological, not cultural. The vibration
of complements is build into our visual system, too.

Saying that these people had some bad ideas doesn't make all their ideas
wrong. We all have head about Newton's alchemy --- but we praise him for
calculus and optics nevertheless. Kepler had his Harmonices Mundi, but we
still can call him a scientist; because sometimes he was.

And if someone comes along and makes color theory even more scientific, that
would be great! I would be overjoyed, because so much of what's been written
about it is absolute bunk. However, at the moment, this is the best answer to
the question I can give; and I think it works pretty well when compared to
randomness.

------
Keelix
First you need to understand the domain, then you can automate it:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory>

Another challenge is what is it you want to achieve? Do you want people to say
"ah, nice", or do you want them to "react" (click something for instance).
Those two may be mutually exclusive in some instances, as generations of neon
signage, "sales" banners and similar are living proof of.

------
nathanh
<http://colorschemedesigner.com> lets you choose a main color and then
generates a color scheme based on semi-objective criteria.

------
mkanemoto
Hi there.

It's been quite a few years for me since I took color theory in college for my
art degree. I think that you can automate color compliments with 2, 3, 4, or x
colors by using "vectors" to compute the opposite hues... cutting the HSV
model in halves for two colors, thirds for three, etc.

To get to the aesthetics, you'll have to use voting or surveys, and the reason
is somewhat straightforward. Here are a few resons (not all):

The appeal of colors change over time with fashion and trends. In the US, mint
green and canary yellow in the 1930s, white and cherry red in the 1940s, the
list goes on for consumer goods and their colors. Think of vintage goods and
their colors. Pantone produces color forecasts and tweaks their colors over
time to reflect tastes.

Cultural differences. Color symbolism plays a large role - after all part of a
designer's skill is selecting the right color for the specific context of an
assignment. White for mourning in Asia != white for a wedding. One thought is
that the region or location may be significant in the aesthetic judgment. If I
remember correctly, the ArthurAnderson logo was orange because it was a color
that could be used globally without negative meaning.

One last note, which comes from my training in a modernist driven school, is
the form and the function of a design in black and while should be rock solid
and work before adding color and the complexity... I think this was taught so
that the novice students we were would learn the basics of typography, form,
and balance before getting into colors.

As to the aesthetics: You can use the voting model like colorlovers (I hope
that older votes are when tracking current color trends), use A/B testing if
you are a web designer, or fall back to a company like Pantone to help you
find current trends. Someone like google might be able to tie click paths to
color schemes ... in other words data mine to establish what is a trend.

------
nopassrecover
Unfortuantely aethetics are subjective - the best you can do is some machine-
learning to recreate a "subjective" mind. As you've discovered, some
combinations can be ruled out immediately on objective grounds, but deciding
why one set of colours is "better" than another when they have similar
properties is something that is not objectively understood. Even more
difficult, the context in which you use the colours affects their "aesthetic
quality".

~~~
domgblackwell
This is very true - despite phrases like 'colour theory' aesthetic quality is
not a matter of fact. Colour choices are not only subjective they are also
highly context-dependent. You can completely transform the appearance of a set
of colours by adding an accent in another and colour choices that are great
for one purpose may be hopeless for another.

------
clord
There is an existence proof "for some value of objective": Your and my own
subjective tastes are also an objective determinant. With enough data from
people, one might find some function over the domain of colour that yields
pleasing combinations.

I'd suggest you put your candidates up on <http://www.colourlovers.com/> and
have them vote.

------
Detrus
Aesthetics is a silly metric. We evolved color combination reactions to find
food, like fruits in a forest, or to find healthy mates.

Every situation is different. A color palette like on kuler or colorlovers
doesn't represent the real environment those colors will be found in. It
doesn't include amounts, gradations and lighting, all things our brains
evolved to process. For example we need to compensate for changes in lighting
on a forest with fruits, because we'll be there at different times of day.

You could develop an objective aesthetic rating for a domain like picking
fruits, based on what time of day should you pick a fruit to get the best
taste, nutritional content.

Giving arbitrary ratings to color palettes has already been done on kuler and
by color theorists, but when the reasons behind the ratings are not
understood, you might as well use a neural net to replicate those ratings,
using the palettes and ratings as training data. Black box either way.

------
mtw
I learned a lot with "Interaction of Color"
[http://www.amazon.com/Interaction-Color-Expanded-Josef-
Alber...](http://www.amazon.com/Interaction-Color-Expanded-Josef-
Albers/dp/0300115954/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273418129&sr=8-1)

------
michaelfairley
Color Theory for Designers: [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/28/color-
theory-for-...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/28/color-theory-for-
designers-part-1-the-meaning-of-color/)

------
rriepe
Make a site that "learns" by asking designers.

Or just make a site that claims to, and then you have somewhere you can post
your color schemes every time you need to test one.

~~~
aristoxenus
You might be able to scrape color + ratings data from sites that offer
downloadable themes / editor color schemes / etc. Or why not, a dataset of
fine art paintings.

