There's a symposium that I either just missed or am about to miss (I just can't afford the ticket or time this semester) hosted by Edward R. Tufte, the author of the classic design book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. I'm a big fan of the book, and once I've got a bit more free time (read: once I'm certified and have a teaching gig), I fully intend to get the follow-up books.
Here's an example of the sort of thing Tufte talks about:
This diagram of the history of available colors in Crayola crayons just sets my left brain a-hummin'!
It's particularly interesting to look at the increased range of "skintone" colors in the late 50s...and also worth noting that the color "flesh" was renamed to "peach" in 1962. Nowadays, you can get a pack of various pinks, beiges and browns that can be used as skintones, but thankfully none of them is called "flesh," as that would pretty blatantly tell kids that that one color was the "right" color for skin.
Just deleted a comment that was nothing but a few dozen links to adults-only sites based in Asia. In this case, I think it's fair to say that not all attention is good attention!
ReplyDeleteIf anyone's reading this: don't be afraid to leave comments, Gentle Reader - it's nice encouragement...
Let me amend that: hearing comments from anyone WHO IS ACTUALLY READING THE BLOG AND NOT JUST SPAMMING would be nice encouragement.
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