A Practical Guide for Color Managers- THE SECOND C: COLOR WITH A PURPOSE (Part 2)

Keith Hoover

Keith Hoover is the president of Black Swan Textiles and is devoted to advancing manufacturing-centric digital processes for color and fabric development. His career began as a fashion illustrator, later moving into product development. He has designed digital color management programs for several renowned global brands, including Ralph Lauren, Target, Lands' End, JCPenney, and Under Armour, successfully replacing traditional and laborious lab-dip processes. At Under Armour, he spearheaded the "UA Lighthouse" innovation center, promoting digital and advanced manufacturing processes to achieve local-for-local sourcing. Hoover has hands-on experience in mills around the world and is a prominent guest at the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC).

A- A A+

Color Inspiration at a Design-Driven Brand
According to Yun Chen, choosing colors is like exploring a “lonely, uncharted wilderness.” [5] It is up to a designer’s talent and vision to select a collection of colors to represent the aesthetic of a design concept. Some designers see new colors clearly in their mind’s eye and need a way to document them. Others go exploring in stores, galleries. This textile series will share technical insights and wisdom of AATCC members. The "Second C" series will focus on color. If you wish to contribute your own technical insights on topics of interest to AATCC members, contact Communications Director, Maria Thiry; Technical Insight or anyplace likely to spark their imagination. They don’t know what they want, but they’ll “know it when they see it.” [6]

In either case, color designers must rely on “found objects” to represent the colors that they want. This is no mean feat, since it is estimated that there are between 1.5 and 2 million distinguishable colors that can be represented on textiles. [7] Found objects fall into two classes: 1) color reference sets and 2) colors artifacts (also known as cuttings, swatches, etc.). [8] Color reference sets are large collections of colors (usually between 2,000 and 5,000 colors) marketed to support various segments within the design industry. They are set up on different substrates such as paper, plastic, or fabric, sometimes intended for use in specific processes like printed packaging. Some companies market the breadth of their collections while others claim to have the “right” colors, not the most colors.

Colorists at Design-driven brands point out three aesthetic weaknesses of color reference sets: first, everyone has access to them. A designer who wants an exclusive, “new” color is unlikely to look in a source marketed to the masses. Similarly, color reference sets are colors selected by someone else. Although color reference sets are sold as an aid to color selection, some see them as a crutch. And finally, there are never enough colors in a color reference set. If it has 5,000, then sure enough, it needs 5,001 to meet a particular designer’s need.

And then there are color artifacts—the cuttings that are the size of one’s fingernail and the bane of a dyer’s existence. The use of fabric cuttings continues to this day. Just like a betrothed at Filene’s "Running of the Brides," searching for the perfect color involves the thrill of the hunt. One may have to dig deep to find the right swatch, but that is part of the exclusivity of the process.

Color Inspiration at a Merch-Driven Brand

If Design-driven color inspiration is taking Frost’s “road less traveled,” then the Merch-driven color inspiration process is traveling Interstate 5 from the San Bernardino Freeway to the San Gabriel River Freeway at 5:00pm—and loving it. Merch-driven colorists want to know the colors that are selling now. They look to trend reports and fashion hot spots around the world for information. In this sense, they are closely aligned with “Fast Fashion” in their effort to jump on the color bandwagon driven by someone else.

Some trend services claim to use AI technology to scrape color information from thousands of key fashion-related websites and provide up-to-the-minute, focused color forecasts. The validity of the color data used in this process may be subject to question, but the demand for such insight cannot be doubted. To streamline the process, color trend services link their forecasts to commercial color reference sets.

Merch-driven brands are much more likely to rely on color reference sets and forbid the use of cuttings as color references. In a sense, trend research can be like an echo chamber. Every garment that is included in a trend analysis was designed at least a year prior. And its design may have been based on trend research including garments produced another year back. So, in essence, a Merch-driven approach to fashion just keeps drinking its own spit.

Regardless of the motivation, the colors selected to populate a color palette must be handed off for replication. As we move from the sacred to the profane (in a theological sense), the big question is whether or not color inspirations can be feasibly matched on Technical Insight the intended materials. Indeed, color standards must be feasible in order to meet the purpose of color management—“assuring that the product ends up in the right color.” In the next installment, we’ll talk about this hand-off—and even integration—between color inspiration and replication.

References:

[5.] Chen, Yun & Yu, Luwen & Westland, Stephen & Cheung, Vien. (2021). “Investigation of Designers’ Colour Selection Process,” Colour Research & Application. 46. 10.1002/col.22631.

[6.] Not unlike how Justice Potter Stewart described his ability to spot pornography— “I’ll know it when I see it,” Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S.184, 197 (1964)

[7.] Judd, D.B. and Wyszecki, G. (1975), Color in Business, Science, and Industry, John Wiley and Sons.

[Reproduction Notice] This series of articles is published with the permission of the author, Keith Hoover, and has been edited and adapted. Any reproduction must clearly indicate the source and include relevant links.