Sunday, July 20, 2008

My Favorite Color.


















So I was walking with Samara today and we got to talking about favorite colors. I asked her what her favorite color is and she promptly named 4.

Now if a college-educated person answers like that, I do believe that you have every right to hit them upside the head with one of those giant, inflatable, squeaky baseball bats. *inflatable... make sure it's inflatable!

When a seven -year-old girl tosses you that answer, however, it is totally acceptable. The point (for her) was that choosing any one color was a difficult thing to do. As it turns out, she likes lots of colors for lots of reasons.

Apart from causing me a little bit of fatherly joy, the discussion got me to thinking about what my favorite color really is. Growing up, I had always just answered "blue" when someone asked me that question, but as we get older, it seems we find that so many things we once held to are just not applicable anymore. So I wanted to be sure. I wanted to know, "is blue still my favorite color?" For that matter... was it ever?

That's when it struck me... I don't really like colors when they are alone. What I mean to say is that, one color, just one lone hue, is not appealing to me in the least. The implications of this realization were staggering to me. For starters, now I have no appropriate answer when someone asks what my favorite color is. I have to be 'that guy' who says, "I don't like colors by themselves." Oh man! Who invited this guy to the party?!" The other implication is that I must now become comfortable with this as a fact... a truth about me... Luke Renner.

The truth is, I really LOVE colors... but mostly when they are placed alongside other colors. It's a pretty easy thing to get your head around, but I think that we rarely process it intentionally.

What is perhaps more alarming than this personal revelation of mine is that I am entirely, not alone when it comes to this. Graphic designers have known for a long time that good color combos can make all the difference between something being appealing or not.

For example (scroll down for more of my gripping text below):






























































































So all of this got me to thinking, "there is something really profound inside of this."

Life is so much better, so much easier to look at, so much more appealing, when there are combinations of colors. Even if that means a side-by-side expression of two shades of the same color.

As we go to Haiti, I plan to keep one color combination in the forefront of all that we do. May it exemplify what it means to be human... what it means to be lovely... what it means to be appealing.

For that, I can think of no better color combination than this:


















*please allow for variations in hue.

1 comment:

T and T Livesay said...

woot. we'll add you to our links list -- cannot wait till you're here -- what fun parties we'll have!!!!

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