color: what you see, what it was, what it does

What you see

Check out this free online color challenge by X-Rite, owners of Pantone (among so many others). Apparently color acuity is measured on a scale….see generally where you are on the scale. Are you more or less color challenged than you knew? If you want all the persnickity details, the Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue Test will allow you to determine the specifics of the color clarity of you and all your co-designers.

What it was

Medieval book historian and teacher Erik Kwakkel shares this Dutch book on color, called Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau (Treatise on Watercolor Paints), hand written and published (do you call it published if there is only one?) in 1692 by someone known only as ‘A. Boogert’. Nearly 800 pages of color mixed and described by the author for ‘educational purposes’ during the Dutch Golden Age. You can check…