Monday, October 17, 2016

Color Memories

When the internet was new, I had a boss who insisted that I make our organization’s website use the same green that she saw when she printed a webpage. She correctly pointed out that the green on her monitor was different from the green on her printer. No matter what I did, this was true. I briefly tried explaining the difference between emitted light and reflected light, but it didn't take.

This was after the gig where a retailer had the brilliant idea of scanning color swatches and mailing the images to manufacturers on another continent to match. Now to me and to a lot of guys one pale yellow looks pretty much like another, but to merchandisers there is a huge huge difference – even I knew the project was doomed to failure. The genius who had thought of the idea was a grandson of the founder – his hair was perfect! – so I soon shut up and took the paycheck.

The project was officially a success because the organization had learnings.

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