5 REGENERATIVE COLOUR DIRECTIONS FOR DESIGNERS

Feeling jaded by Cop26, Laura Perryman and Sarah Conway question green’s ability to inspire regenerative environmental action — and explore some compelling alternatives.

This story first appeared in Radical Colour on Medium, here.

We have a biological affinity with green, but is that enough?

When the BBC asks, How green was Cop26?¹ we understand that they are questioning the eco-credentials of the UN’s latest Climate Change Conference. It’s an important question in symbolic and practical terms, but is colouring environmentalism ‘green’ the best way to harness nature’s power in order to protect it, or are we allowing green to soothe us into dangerous passivity? We step back to consider the spectrum and ask: can one ‘holy grail’ shade really save us?

Green thoughts and deeds

Given the scale of the ecological challenges we face, quibbling over the colours in which they are presented might seem petty. Far from it. Colour affects how we feel, how we feel affects how we act, and we do need to act, because the truth is Cop26 was not ‘green’ enough, doubling the carbon footprint of Cop25 and failing even to take its own number one priority for minimising conference emissions seriously: limiting aviation². While pledges were made to end deforestation, reduce methane emissions and make legislative and fiscal commitments more robust,³ coal is being ‘phased down’, not out, and, according to scientists, we’re still on track for 2.4C of global temperature rise.⁴

Green has been associated with environmentalism for at least as long as humans have had the means to record their colour experiences in lasting ways. Cultural examples of green being used to communicate humanity’s relationship with natural cycles are so widespread as to suggest that the connection is intuitive.

In The World According to Colour, James Fox examines this history in a chapter he calls ‘Paradise Lost’.⁵ Humans, who in Islam are “stewards of the ecosystem” have disturbed nature’s delicate balance through “excessive consumption” and “unnecessary destruction.” Now, Fox fears, “our ‘green thoughts’ are tainted with fears of ecological disaster.”

How we are wired to green

Humans enjoy a biological affinity with green. While most mammals are red-green colour blind, a third type of optic cone cell means we can discern and distinguish between subtle shades of green — so much so that we can pick out green lights and objects even at dusk and night — the reason night-vision goggles are often bright green.

Green’s position in the centre of the spectrum makes it the easiest colour to see, and the eye’s natural resting place. And, when we interact with plants, essential ideas of growth, sustenance and interconnectedness are reinforced in our minds.⁶ So, it’s easy to see why green has been so widely accepted as the most ‘natural’ hue and a shorthand for sustainability: it’s the colour we can trust, even in partial darkness.

Greenwash and perception bias

Up to 85% of independent retailers rejected Black Friday/Weekend/Week this year in the UK, many opting for a Green Friday instead.⁷ Green Friday values the planting of trees over the accumulation of profits, and though the pushback began with small businesses, the trend may prove irresistible to large retailers. Green Friday is a spontaneous, unorganised movement that represents the desire of many individuals to switch the dominant cultural narrative from consumption to regeneration, it’s also a battle for control of what green means.

Greenwashing hijacks our green instincts to align corporations with increasingly lucrative green values. As individuals, we need moments of restorative, living green every day, but can no more allow ourselves to mistake eco-signalling for genuine sustainability than to be lulled into the inertia that inauthentic, monochromatic green experiences can invite.

The overuse of vegetal greens may strike a double-blow to the climate, making us both feel and believe that nature is flourishing and we can rest. This phenomenon has long been noted in relation to “charismatic animals” such as tigers and giraffes, whose cultural visibility can mislead us into believing their populations are healthy.⁸

Is green what we need?

Given the strains of living through a pandemic and climate crisis, it’s not surprising that we are seeking green experiences both outdoors and at home. T.S. Eliot described his green space as “my still point of the turning world” and it’s true that green provides us with a precious visual sanctuary. This is perhaps best illustrated by the frequency with which green shades feature as Color of the Year.

A study of handmade greens by Colour of Saying

As we anticipate Pantone’s 2022 announcement, forecasters and designers have noticed something unprecedented: everyone seems to be agreeing on green — and not just a green but on a particularly restful shade of muted sage.⁹

To our minds, this is a little concerning. Green, arguably the most passive colour to look at, is unlikely to be the best shade to activate us in a time of crisis. What’s more, we wonder if complex times call for more nuanced colour responses. Perhaps it’s time to consider multi-tonal palettes that may better accommodate context and intention.

Beyond Green

None of this is to suggest that green is off the table when it comes to regenerative action and communication. But, for now at least, those genuinely interested in environmental regeneration might do better to look beyond verdant greens to other hues and to the infinite experiential possibilities of combining green intelligently with other colours.

Alternative bio-based colour choices from The Circular Colour Report

The challenge for circular designers is formidable: we must use colour to inform, engage and activate audiences without inducing either green fatigue or eco-anxiety, while at the same time, considering the materiality of our colour choices.

As we outline in A Circular Manifesto for Colour, in this Anthropocene Waste Age,¹⁰ colour will increasingly be reincorporated and remedial. The ways in which colour might support environmental health are infinite. We detail many in our Circular Colour Report; Below we outline five directions with real-world examples that have caught our eye.

1. Acids: cutting through the bullshit

Green on black goes back in time to the phosphor screens of the first personal computers. While achromatic black and white convey simplicity and a go-to timeless baseline, interfaces with highly contrasting neutrals and pure chroma are easier on the eye, making online content inclusive for a broader range of audiences.

Eco-Bot.Net

As data and greenwashing proliferate, combining vital green with black is a form of digital nostalgia that may also cut through the bullshit.

Eco-bot.net scans data from Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for “corporate greenwashing” messages and flags eco-disinformation on social media in the style of health warnings.

Given the psychedelic styling, it’s no surprise that eco-bot is the creation of artists and activists: Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja, “hacktivist” Bill Posters and Ecotricity founder and environmental campaigner, Dale Vince.

1. Alternative Palette : High octane acids used intelligently

Harness this trend

Perhaps Eco-bot’s achromatic black connotes oil or, at a minute to midnight, the darkness that means time’s up. But, thanks to the counter-culture vibe injected by neon green and pink, Eco-bot manages to be both nostalgic and innovative. It’s a powerful combination and one to try out — particularly if you’re looking to activate politically-engaged and marginal(ised) people. For strikingly different effects with similar energy, try using achromatic white or grey in the place of black with shots of yellow or orange neon.

2. Bright pastels: fresh futures

Calming, welcoming pastels encourage interaction, making them an interesting proposition for spaces, clothing and objects driving collective environmental action. In their latest, brighter shades, pastels bring a zing of fresh innovation to the conversation.

Capturing the zeitgeist of Instagrammable youth-driven colour trends and linking with plant life and nature in interiors, mint green has become a symbol for utopian optimism.
Laura Perryman, The Colour Bible

Case Study: Aero

Colour in Design Award “One to watch” Aj Choudhury uses colour as a universal language to communicate air quality to pedestrians in ‘Aero’, a neat portable device and app.

Aero monitors particulate matter and volatile chemicals every twenty seconds. Overall findings are represented visually on a colour-changing LED ring that transitions from clean turquoise to deep red.

A fresh interpretation of the more obvious traffic light shades of red, amber and green, Choudhury’s colour choices bring nuance to the situation, offering reassurance and gentle warning messages that invite a response.

2. Alternative Palette: Fresh pastel warnings — contrasts of warm and cool indicate important information

Harness this trend

Bold, bright and high-frequency on the visible spectrum, red is a clear evolutionary marker for danger, whether in the shape of poisonous berries or burning fire and is still universally used to map heatwaves, highlight high temperatures and issue prohibitive warnings.

While red is highly effective in communicating urgency it is not necessarily the best colour to inspire remedial environmental action; cortisol naturally prompts us to run away from red’s danger message, not towards the challenge it signals.

Bright pastels offer an engaging but non-threatening alternative. Used alone or in combination with complementary and neutral shades these tertiary colours are a subtle way to inspire action without triggering eco-anxiety.

3. Chromatic contrast: a flexible palette

As Laura explains in The Colour Bible, combining colours with the same level of intensity can create vibrant harmony; an impactful way to give different facets of a product, service, process or story hierarchical equality.

Colour can help us to respond intelligently to environmental challenges by providing an inclusive language that facilitates understanding. The Design Museum in London, for example, advocates a “universal colour code for components” so materials can be intuitively and visually detected and separated.¹¹

Case Study: Extinction Rebellion

In ‘The Colours of Resistance’ Laura Snoad describes Extinction Rebellion’s approach to colour as “unorthodox”. Whereas other environmental activist groups can be defined by a single shade (generally leaf or forest green), Clive Russell of design studio This Ain’t Rock’n’Roll, who designed XR’s identity opted for “12 equally weighted colours (including three pinks) that are joyful and punchy.”¹²

The idea, Russell tells Snoad, was to avoid political affiliations “ingrained in our culture” while distinguishing XR from other eco movements: “XR’s main green” Snoad notes, “is a tangy apple-like hue, far brighter and livelier than the forest shade you might associate with Greenpeace or the Green Party.”¹³

3. Alternative Palette: Chromatic Contrast — an activist palette inspired by XR

Harness this trend

Just as we’re coming to a new and vital appreciation of the importance of biodiversity in the natural world, human diversity is finally, gradually being embraced and celebrated: the individual a part of an interconnected whole.

By juxtaposing colours of the same intensity but with different cultural, political or social connotations it’s possible to create fresh meanings and to bring voices and narratives together in exciting combinations. Try matching three or four high-chroma colours together for maximum impact and using achromatic black and white to frame or frame strong hues.

4. Imperfect palettes: captured colour

[Waste] is no longer assimilable into ‘nature’ in the way that the waste of human civilisations was for millennia before the Industrial Revolution. This new, ‘improved’ waste is incompatible with the Earth — too chemical, too durable, too noxious and, ultimately, too voluminous.
Justin McGuirk, Waste Age: What can design do?

When our raw material is waste, it is still raw, just newly so. It was crude and has become so again; it was processed and requires some new process. This presents opportunities as well as challenges. Contrasting ‘virgin’ and ‘waste’ materials sets up a false dichotomy that imagines materials came to us pure, refined and uncontaminated, when in fact we know that if we want a few grammes of copper, we’ll need to mine a tonne of ore. Overground mining can be a simpler, enriching process.

Colour is one way to make the reincorporation of waste visual and exciting, resulting in serendipitous moments and curious juxtapositions that reveal something of the ancestry of our materials and the processes through which they evolved. Via colour, cultural fragments can be assimilated into something, if not natural, at least useful and perhaps inspirational.

Case study: Gomi

Intermixed polyetheylene plastics by Gomi

Plastic bags are fugitives of a recycling infrastructure that fails to accommodate mixed plastics and, along with cling wrap, account for around 150 billion kilos of waste each year.

Gomi works with this problematic waste stream to create products that offer a visual representation of the chemicals present within our plastics — a spontaneous chromatography of synthetics. “All the plastic we use reacts differently with our process”, says Meades, “we love working with loud contrasting colour mixes of plastic shopping bags.”¹⁴

A trailblazer in Waste Age remediation, Gomi takes full responsibility for the life of its products by encouraging customers to use their ‘repair and recycle’ services, thus decoupling growth from resource use: a trend set to grow as we transition to a circular economy.

4. Alternative palette: Intermixed second-life colour inspired by Gomi

Harness this trend

Visually reincorporated colour lends a dynamic element to design. Rather than concealing the recycled element, it is brought to the fore with chance results that feel surprisingly natural in their spontaneity and motion, inviting participation and response.

In the example above, Gomi uses a dyad combination of two colours (green and orange) that are two spaces apart on the colour wheel. This jump, or separation, causes visual interest without a directly oppositional contrast.

Michael Johnson’s artwork for Cop26 uses a similar strategy in two dimensions to show a world “in flux,” where “no one country [is] at the fore, or to blame.” The swirling, marble effect¹⁵ is supported by the use of analogous colours in different tones. While green and blue are harmonious neighbours, the darker blue tone results in an energising tonal contrast.

Crucially, the purple-blue used in the posters is not cold at all, rather warm, it draws you into the message — if this was a stark cold blue you won’t be able to look at it for as long or to identify with the campaign message as easily.

5. Functional colour: remedial shades

Until recently, our perception of ‘eco’ or ‘natural colour’ was restricted to a puritanical palette of browns, greens and creams that cost more, inspired less and added next to nothing in terms of function or performance. Yet in nature, where nothing is wasted, colour is infinite. Circular colour harnesses feedback-rich living systems, biomimicry and biotech to close take-make-waste loops while enhancing products and materials. While the natural biorhythms of the circular economy have always been familiar intuitively, now, elucidated by scientific research, we can apply them conceptually.¹⁶

Case Study: Phoebe Lewis

Phoebe Lewis is an industrial designer focused on developing products that help restore marine ecosystems and coastal communities. Beginning with an exploration of the coastline near Newcastle, Lewis gathered seaweed samples, processing different species to gain an understanding of how seaweed can be utilised in a variety of contexts.

These paint experiments, in collaboration with Dulux, utilise natural pigments derived from algae. Lewis aims to develop a comprehensive pigment range from seaweed.

Gutteral lilac, sea greens and deep blue combine to form a plant-based palette that is grounded and cool — yet natural and arresting.

Natural pigments derived from algae — an ongoing project by Phoebe Lewis

5. Alternative Palette: Algae remedial shades

Harness this trend

There is so much more to come from this incredible bioforce. Algae and seaweed have the potential to produce a vast colour spectrum — as yet, somewhat hidden. Its intrinsic ability to biomineralize insinuate new ways of creating colour, all the while raising our conscious awareness around how we make, and how we manufacture products.

Seaweed can play a huge role in fighting climate change by absorbing carbon emissions, regenerating marine ecosystems, creating biofuel and renewable plastics as well as generating marine protein.¹⁶

When our paints and dyes are also carbon stores and detoxificants that will nourish the soil when their job is done, they have a much more intelligent purpose than just colouring something green.

> More colour intelligence

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