As an abstract painter who is constantly studying colors and how they work together, learning more about how cultures perceive colors was a natural topic for me to pick for my animated infographic. This was an assignment for my motion design class. I was excited to work with information on colors in a creative and engaging way. 

I found research from two sources for the sequence. The first was a section called “Colour and Culture” from Ruben Pater’s The Politics of Design book. One quote from this chapter really struck me: 

“Research shows that ninety-eight languages have words for the same basic colors; however, the meaning a color may have can be very different.” (Page 75)

This quote directly inspired me for the opening segment where I broke up the color spectrum into 98 pieces. You can see an early story board idea illustrating this fact. In the final animation, I broke the entire spectrum into 98 pieces instead of each individual color to keep the pacing tight. It was more of a symbolic gesture than a literal one.

In the second section, I again looked to Pater’s chapter. He went through every color and broke down ways people view the color differently. For times sake, I decided to select only one color (orange) to break down in depth. Aesthetically, I chose to use the mask morphing effect to transition between the different visuals. My goal for this section was to show how malleable our perception of a colors can be. 

I hope this project makes you ponder how you perceive colors and how that might differ from your neighbor. Thank you for reading more about my inspiration and process for this infographic. Please find the full animated infographic below. Enjoy!