Color type theory

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The color analysis is a theory based on skin tone , eye and hair color assignment of certain color tables for clothes and make-up and interior design manufactures. In this way, the appearance of a certain person should harmonize with their appearance and living environment via their assignment to a color type. Professionally, the use of these extended color systems is called color advice , part of color and style advice .

Historical development

Color circle , watercolored pen drawing by Goethe, 1809
Original: Free Deutsches Hochstift - Goethe Museum in the Goethe House , Frankfurt
Color wheel by Johannes Itten , 1961

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe already dealt intensively with the phenomenon of color in an exchange with painters and philosophers , starting from the unity of nature and in contradiction to Isaac Newton .

One of the theories for dividing people into color types goes back to the Swiss painter, graphic artist and art teacher Johannes Itten (1928). Itten's students were asked to paint their individual ideas of harmonious colors for his research on the relationship between form and color. Itten assigned the respective color chords to the corresponding students, whereupon he examined the different effects of colors on the facial features of people.

A color type theory was developed at art academies in the USA, according to which every person has a skin undertone that exists from birth and does not change in the course of life.

Classification according to skin and color types

Although human skin colors vary widely, the undertone is limited to two main variations. With warmtonig yellowish or very rarely occurring reddish-backed skin colors are designated with kalttonig accordance with the bluish underlying skin tones. In addition to this blue value for the classification of the main classes, skin colors are also divided according to their intensity and the light value of the respective color tone . So four color types are formed, which are named after the four seasons. Due to the similarity of the colors that harmonize with the seasons and the colors that predominate there, “handy names” are created.

Warm tone

Spring type
  • Light type with warm (golden-rosy) skin tone and light hair color with golden to reddish reflections. The complexion is delicate and tans badly. Freckles can occur.
  • Eye colors: light green, light brown.
  • Colors that harmonize well: lime green, spring green, champagne, honey, cognac, turquoise, aquamarine, apricot, salmon red, lobster red, poppy red, gold
Autumn type
  • Muted type with a warm (golden-rosy) complexion and red-brown, red or medium to dark blonde hair with a golden sheen or a honey tone. The complexion is delicate, tans badly, and sunburn occurs quickly. Freckles can occur.
  • Eye colors: brown, green.
  • Colors that harmonize well: rust red, copper red, chestnut red, olive green, fir green, golden beige, camel, fawn brown, chocolate brown, mustard yellow, petrol blue, copper

Cold tone

Summer type
  • Pale type with cool (bluish-rosy) skin tone and hair color with ashy reflections
  • Eye colors: blue-gray, blue-green, gray-green, gray-blue, gray, very rarely gray-brown
  • Colors that harmonize well: denim blue, sky blue, silver gray, taupe , mauve, lilac, lavender, rose tones, raspberry red, mint green, reed green, platinum
Winter type
"Winter" color scale
  • Type with cool (bluish or olive) skin tone and light to dark hair colors. Everything comes from tanning very quickly to not tanning at all.
  • Eye colors: Any eye color possible.
  • Colors that harmonize well depending on the light value: white, black, pink, magenta, purple, crocus, cherry red, emerald green, chrome green, lemon yellow, gentian blue, royal blue, night blue, lavender blue, cornflower blue, violet, ice colors such as ice blue, ice rose, silver. Possibly. also neon colors.
  • Most Mediterranean, Asian and dark-skinned people are of the winter type

Individual color advice

The classic division into four seasons was expanded in the 1980s to include "individual color advice" as part of color and style advice . This is necessary if a person cannot be adequately classified in the classic color image of the symbolic four seasons. The palette of the individual color scale of the color mixing type enables an expanded color image. The light type, the dark type and other mixed types were added. In this way, it is better matched to the individual personality by including optimal shades in the color advice. The documentation is carried out using variable color passes . The color advice became more individual according to the diversity of the people.

It should be noted that the effect and classification of colors depends crucially on the respective lighting (see color rendering ). During a consultation, lighting in a natural daylight spectrum is aimed for. Similarly, is color reception heavily on subjective factors dependent (see color vision , red-green color blindness ).

Trends and developments

  • The Swiss psychologist Max Lüscher examined possible relationships between the human psyche and colors in 1947. With his Lüscher color test, he derived a system from this in order to be able to draw conclusions from the preferred color tones and color relationships of a test person about their character traits and suitability for certain tasks. The basic definition of relationships between the characteristics of a person and their color structure does not take into account the cultural and educational character. The Lüscher method is criticized as not being valid, but has been expanded into a commercial system.
  • The analysis of color types is becoming increasingly individual. The natural colors are determined with reference to skin, eye, eyebrow and hair color and translated into the color type. These customized color equivalents are translated into an individually customized color palette. This results in a system of 26 different types, regardless of the season types, which in turn can be mixed with one another and result in the upwardly open, individual system. The diversity of human appearances can be underlined much nicer.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Max Lüscher : The Lüscher test. Personality assessment through color choice. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1975, ISBN 3-498-03812-5 .
  2. ^ Scientific criticism of the Lüscher color test
  3. ↑ Veronika Wimmer: My most beautiful me. Personal style as a path to self . Kreuz Verlag, Freiburg i.Br. 2014, ISBN 978-3-451-61261-9