Within the zeitgeist,
Pantone-mania has reached its boiling point. Sephora recently released a
makeup line centered on Pantone’s
color of the year,
food artist Emilie de Griottes showed a series of
Pantone-inspired fruit t(art)s, and the daily practice of
Pantonism presses on. But some are looking beyond the color authority’s perfectly plotted squares, embracing the entire color spectrum as a way to express an artistic mission or just make things pretty.
Clear: There’s no shortage of
methods for remembering to complete your daily tasks and chores, but few are as straightforward as Realmac Software’s to-do list app,
Clear. The app features a gesture-based interface that foregoes buttons and features (like recurring task and notification options) for the sake of sleek simplicity. Users can manage lists exclusively by pinching, pulling, and swiping their screens. Most compellingly, tasks are ordered according to priority, which is indicated through a heat-map-reminiscent color gradient: high priority tasks are tomato red, and those of lower import degrade from orange-red to goldenrod. The app’s clean interface and unfussy design secured
much media buzz upon its
App store release.
Funnybone Toys: Merging competitive gameplay with minimalist design,
Funnybone Toys has created three card games, each reliant on the color spectrum, for its inaugural Color Series. The games vary in objective and complexity—
Spectrix asks players to build color spectrums to be the first to get rid of their cards;
Array lets players connect colors to create an expanding mosaic out of color wheels; and
Cubu requires deciphering sequences of multicolor shapes to determine the next move—but all three seek to cognitively and visually engage players through
tactile (i.e., not entirely screen-based) play. Initial orders are set to ship this May, so keep tabs on your local toy store.
Best Friends: Artist Colin Pinegar recently conducted a
friend audit, called
Best Friends, in an attempt to assess the true nature of his Facebook “friendships.” Categorizing his connections on a scale of 0-25 (0 being a virtual stranger, 25 a real-life bestie), Pinegar built a hierarchy out of Facebook’s masses. He then crafted a miniature model of his head to represent each friend, and plotted them on a color spectrum where deep purples indicate true friendship and pale pinks mere acquaintanceship. The resultant tangible infographic suggests different grades of friendship, each of which necessitates a different level of familiarity. With its introduction of the
acquaintance list, Facebook seems to have come to a similar conclusion.
