Colour extra

 

We thought the following information and ideas were interesting. We hope you will agree!

If you want to add any ideas or 'colour facts' to this part of the site, please contact us.

Salad spinner centrifuge
You can use a salad spinner as a centrifuge to remove water from fabric:
  1. Weigh a piece of fabric which will easily go into the salad spinner.
  2. Make the fabric wet and weigh it.
  3. Spin the fabric in the salad spinner for 1 minute.
  4. Weigh it again.

How much water did you manage to remove?

Moody blues

Did you know that colours are often associated with moods, temperatures, warnings, etc. For example:

Blue coldness
Orange warmth
Yellow cheerfulness
Grey sadness
Red stop/danger
Green the environment

These are traditional emotional associations:

Red rage
Blue loyalty
Yellow jealousy
Green hope
Brown earth
Violet mystical
Black death
White divine purity, holiness
Purple dignity
Dark red blood

Living colours

We are becoming more aware of how colours can affect us in many ways in our daily lives.

Fashions for colours inside houses, in furniture and clothing have changed a great deal, especially through the 1940's to the present day. This is partly because of better ways to make paints and dyes. There has been greater choice of colours, as new pigments and dyestuffs are discovered. Synthetic dye colours can be much brighter and richer than in the past. For instance, industry can now make fluorescent colours.

Pale colours may be used to try to make a room look larger, and darker colours to make a room look smaller. Pale colours reflect more light than dark colours, so if a room is painted with pale colours, the room appears lighter and bigger.

Reds and oranges close in on you, white and pale colours give a feeling of distance.

Pale colours are associated with hygiene; hospitals are often painted white or cream.

Colour plays an important role in choosing our food and drink. Certain foods appear unappetising if they are the 'wrong' colour, e.g. blue mashed potatoes or black baked beans. Would you like to eat red bananas or purple chips?


Colour preferences

Results of a recent survey in Germany of popular colours:

Colour % Adults % Children up to 14 yrs
Blue 29.0 23.0
Turquoise 4.5 2.0
Green 12.5 8.5
Yellow 7.0 6.0
Orange 4.0 1.5
Red & vermilion 22.0 38.0
Pink 4.0 9.5
Purple 4.0 0.2
Violet 5.5 8.0
Black 2.0 0.7
White 1.0 2.0
Brown 2.5 0.5
All other colours (Under 1%)    
  100% 100%

From these figures can you answer the following questions:

  1. Which colours are equally popular with men and women?
  2. Which colours are more popular among men then women?
  3. Which colours are more popular among women then men?

Pay rise!

Due to hardship in the middle of the First World War, pay rises were awarded to the Yorkshire Dyers' Federation on 22nd July 1916 as follows:

  Present wage per week Pay rise
Men 31/- to 33/- 4/- per week to all men of 18 years and over
  (about £3.20) (about 40p)
     
Women, boys & girls 13/- to 19/- 2/8 per week to all youths under 18 years,
  (about £1.60) (about 27p)

What shape is that colour ?

A survey in Germany discovered that certain shapes tend to be associated with particular colours:

Squares - red, navy blue
Equilateral triangles - green, orange
Acute-angled triangles - red-orange
Stars - yellow, red-orange
Parallelograms - brown, blue, green-blue
Circles - green, yellow, orange
Rings - purple, blue, yellow
Ovals - violet, grey

Do you agree? Ask other people you know what they think.