The Theory of Pallor cont.

The typical basic colour of the Eighties, particularly with regard to office environment and equipment, was the first pallor which we worked on successfully, thanks in part to timely analysis of the previous epoch-making change of course induced by new shades of electronic colour.

It was only a minimal chromatic shift from the neutrals of the 70s, but it was an area of the spectrum where the eye is particularly sensitive. In fact we moved from the greenish dominant of beige to a reddish dominant, i.e. towards a neutral with the YR tendencies typical of sand. It was like being offered a new, enormous “foundation” on which to propose the options of the emerging tonal colours that would be reproduced on objects in their typical polychrome distribution. They were colours that could never have combined freely and harmoniously with the dominant pallor of the previous decade.

The pallor of the Nineties is tending towards contrasting shades on Munsell’s diagram, in the diametrically opposed BG (Blue Green) area, which underlines the upheaval under way.

They are colder neutrals, more mimetic than their predecessors, which will offset the most up-to-date metachromatic choices of the design culture. These cold neutrals, together with the warm tones of the new iconic colours, reveal the artificiality of their supports, which is only too apparent in the new ecological conception of many of the industrial products that will appear on the environmental scene in the coming years.

The YR pallor of the past decade will remain for some years to come on the objects of our environment. The history of its lifespan will bear witness to the complexity of the space-time events that have made it so important. The time and space functions, the punctuality of a proposal and the extension of its diffusion are indispensable conditions if a simple neutral colour is to be recognized as a genuine basic colour.

The first application of the YR pallor on European products dates back to 1980. But its real debut coincided with the timely presentation at NeoCon 83 in Chicago of the new model of American office, featuring this new basic colour.

It occurred simultaneously with the first Memphis exhibitions in 1982 and 1983, which were to legitimize the image of the objects and the polychrome environment throughout the world.

The pervasive nature of a basic colour is also of fundamental importance, in other words, the possibility that this is accepted in different cultures and countries and adapted to application on the widest possible spectrum of commodities. The validity of the YR dominant was confirmed by the surprising speed of its international expansion on the products of leading companies in Europe and later in Japan.

This seems to be the destiny of a minimalist poetic inspiration of the design culture: gaining strength from working by small but top quality stages in the vast scale of quantity.

Clino T. Castelli, Milan, September 1992