Saturday, July 31, 2010

All the colors of the Rainbow?


I was looking through a paint fan deck the other day and got to thinking- Seriously, who names these colors? Are they really trying in envoke some sort of emotional connection between you and the paint color? Or are they just names pulled out of the air randomly strung together.
I got to thinking more about it and did a little research online. It turns out I'm not the only one who wonders about this. I found some posts on this topic on Yahoo! Answers, most of the responses were jokes along the lines of "the Paint Color Namers all get together for a party, drink, then throw out names to their boss. Whoever has the craziest wins."


Some Examples:

Scanda (Short for Scandelous?)







Comical Coral (or yes, this is a hilarious color)










Lime Rickey (not sure what to say...)






Nuthatch (What?)




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Butterscotch
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dutch Cocoa
 
Banana Cream (Ok now I'm getting hungry!)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Orange seems to have the best though:



Determined Orange
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rhumba Orange (party!)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Outgoing Orange (As opposed to his brother Introvert Orange)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I did find one article that was somewhat helpful, though it doesn't give the true answer as to how paint colors get their names.
 
http://www.namedevelopment.com/blog/archives/2007/08/paint_color_nam.html
 
What's the craziest paint color you've come across? I'd love to hear it! Happy painting!

4 comments:

Breanna said...

Hah! Such a good point. I can't tell you how many times I have thought about this when looking through my paint deck fan!

becky said...

Thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one who thinks about these things!

Keetha Broyles said...

Thanks for your visit back to my blog. NO NO NO - - -I did NOT go fishing. Fisherhubby fishes for BOTH of us. Hehehehehehehe

Color names are funny. My dining room is lamplight yellow, the living room is basil, and the hallway is coastal plain.

Anonymous said...

I actually worked in the color department for a woman's fashion company and yes we had to come up with color names. We didn't usually go too crazy, but it was interesting to see the process. One time we had the EXACT color of those bright green peppers that are in your salad - pepperoncini - and that is what we wanted to call the color (we sold a lot via catalog - so thought it would tell the customer exactly the color they were getting) - but we were vetoed by the merchandising dept. Guess they thought selling a pepper color would be a difficult sell. =)