balancing act

Last night I chatted with a few people about the relevance of one's geographical location when designing.

There's one element that's clear as hell for people design: light type/colour balance is different in each region. Some colours get 'hidden' and unpleasantly come out when they're brought to other places, others 'translate' quite well and are generally bearable when compared to the selection of colours originally chosen.

I have a white linen dress with white guipure lace trimmings purchased in Singapore; I thought they were of the same colour until I looked at my reflection in the bus a few weeks ago and caught sight of....... ivory-coloured lace on optic white linen fabric. It wasn't obvious, but as someone who scrutinise colour cards on a regular basis, this was vexing.

There are other elements to the game as well, such as slight tints of contacts and hard lenses, which complicates the game. This token of wisdom is courtesy of my sister - when we went to NZ yonks ago she regularly took off her glasses 'to enjoy the colours'. I noticed a similar thing as well when I wore coloured contacts for fun, I barely pop them on these days.

Also, I notice that clothes lose their colour when they are hung out under direct sun. They go crispy and all faded out - which happens to a lot of stuff that gets washed in Jakarta. The crispness might have come from hard water, but the fading definitely comes from UV rays. When I lived in Melbourne, the colours fade faster in summer, when clothes are hung to dry on the backyard instead of being tumble dried. I don't advocate tumble drying, but I do think drying clothes in shade will preserve its colour better, ceteris paribus*.
*oh how I love using this economist-like phrase...

I'm looking at getting a second Pantone deck soon. It's time to graduate to proper fabric swatches and you will be sure as hell it will be locked away in a dark place ;))