If Josef Albers were alive today, would he call himself a colorist?
The rise of color forecasting has helped to realize a far more considered, consistent, and beautiful world of products and projects. And though misdemeanor and felony color crimes are still committed, their frequency has been severely diminished, thanks in great part to the work of designers and theorists whose sole focus is on identifying and selecting the right colors for a brand or project. Color forecasting is Big Business nowadays, and it’s not the sole domain of the fashion industry either. Everywhere you turn, brands and cultures are so tuned into color that a cottage industry has sprung up, populated by all manner of champions and charlatans eager to tell you what hue you should use.
If Josef Albers were alive today, would he call himself a colorist? Would he view those inhabiting this field as his progeny? His practical and spiritual successors? Would he turn in his PMS Cool Gray 11 grave? Or would it even matter WHAT the old man thought? Whenever rules, no matter how good their intentions and how thought-through their development (recall that Albers spent the last years of his life almost totally dedicated to understanding and expressing new rules for color relationships), are created, there will always be a few forward—and sometimes backward—looking rebels intent on finding success where many would claim none should be found. Brands and fans are on the eternal hunt for the new and the unique, not just the things that are time- and trend-tested to be true. This audience acceptance of experimentation and irony is risky (and often maps as much to trend as it does to anything else) but necessary. Too much reliance on trend will tend to overshadow a brand’s own personality and perception, replacing ideals and values and expressions with purely data-driven actions, predictable, essentially conservative, and quite the opposite of unique.
Ultimately, the regurgitation and application of raw data (color-forecasting trends) fall short of the profession’s real potential. It’s the combination of the colorist’s talent, insight, and respect for and understanding of a brand’s context, POV, and intimate relationship with its audience and category that guides pure information into profound action.