Neon color

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Highlighter in signal colors

Neon color is a term for colors and coloring agents with a high luminosity .

The term was introduced at the end of the 1960s ("neon colors", "neon glowing"), derived from the fluorescent tubes that were emerging at the time , also erroneously called `` neon tubes '', and their particularly high luminance and the bright colors that were possible with them.

Colorants

Today one understands by it colorants with abnormally high color saturation and chroma , on the one hand "bright, screaming" colors (chemical groups such as phthalocyanines , pyrrole dyes and other new developments since the 1960s), but in particular also colorants with optical brighteners ( fluorescent day color ) , the less bright or invisible short-wave spectral components of daylight (blue, violet and ultraviolet) converted by fluorescence into brighter, longer-wave visible light (yellow and green) (also called black light or UV luminous color ). Some of these colorants also contain afterglow pigments (also noctilucent paint ), which after exposure to light in the dark through phosphorescence . The retroreflective colors with high reflectivity are to be distinguished from luminous colors - the ability to reflect light back towards the light source, which is achieved by adding fine transparent spheres. All of these latter classes of colorants have a calculated color depth and luminosity of over 100%, because in some way they emit more (visible) light than incident.

Color samples with the characteristic lightening in yellow, cyan and magenta with an even distribution of the nominal RGB values ​​(here an idealized monitor gamut in a CIE U'V'W 'color diagram )

On the screen, the impression of a neon color can primarily be shown in the colors yellow , cyan and magenta , because these are shown in RGB space by two activated color points ( subpixels ) per pixel and therefore have twice the luminance. In color printing ( CMYK color space ) these form the basic colors and are therefore the most colourfast, other prominent color tones must be printed with full tone color (additional colorant). Otherwise the overall chroma of the picture has to be reduced in order to make individual colors stand out.

Yellow, turquoise / light green and pink tones are generally considered to be neon colors. In English, color names such as electric blue (cyan) or neon yellow (high yellow ) are common.

application

Neon colors have a warning effect ( warning color ) , but also attract attention ( signal color ) . This is why these colors are preferred in hazardous areas or used in advertising to highlight products.

  • Retroreflective paint is used for reflective sheeting as well as for traffic signs, road markings and license plates.
  • Highlighter pens with fluorescent color are used to highlight text passages.
  • Marking sprays in all possible applications from construction to forestry
  • Protective clothing (such as those used by road construction workers or in the rescue service ) are colored in neon so that road users can see the workers more quickly. This also applies to the safety vests that drivers in some countries have to carry with them as standard equipment . Safety vests have both retroreflective stripes and fluorescent paint.
  • Fashionable clothing: Since the 1980s , neon colors have also appeared in clothing fashion and interior design . Especially in the context of techno culture of the 1990s, which discovered safety vests and protective clothing as fashionable props, neon colors are then used as a dress code . At the turn of the 2000s / 2010s, the neon look of the 1980s was revived.
  • In the case of food coloring , too , comparatively unnaturally bright colors are popular, for example for sweets or drinks.

Abnormally high color depth colors are also known to cause some optical illusions .

  • Use of retroreflective and fluorescent colors in a dangerous situation

  • Neon color as an eye-catcher

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hilde Klaus: Observations on the fashion color words in contemporary German. In: Journal for German Linguistics. Volume 17, Issue 1, Walter de Gruyter, October 2009, ISSN  0301-3294 , doi: 10.1515 / zfgl.1989.17.1.22 , p. 40, limited preview in the Google book search.
  2. ^ A b Ian "Salmon Season" Golding: The Origin of Neon Colors. In: Somethingawful.com. June 28, 2009, accessed September 16, 2013 .
  3. ↑ see neon letters. From the sky book to the light installation. In: Christina Lechtermann, Haiko Wandhoff: Light, Shine, Glare: Contributions to a cultural history of the luminous. (= Publications for the Journal for German Studies: New Series. Volume 18). Verlag Peter Lang, 2008, ISBN 978-3-03911-309-5 , p. 86 f ( limited preview in Google book search)
  4. ↑ a b What do neon colors have to do with neon? In: Iris Hammelmann: Everyday phenomena: unbelievable but true. Compact Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8174-6411-1 , p. 247 column 2 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search)
  5. ↑ for example: Carolyn Barratt: How to Wear Neon Colors. In: Wikihow.com . Retrieved September 14, 2013 .
  6. ↑ a b the better the color management of the screen, the lower the difference in luminance: then this is compensated for by the reduced glow of the subpixels
  7. ↑ cf. for example: Printing and producing with consistent colors. In: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Ed.): Adobe Photoshop CS . (= Series Classroom in a book). Translated by Maik-Felix Gomm. Markt & Technik Buch- und Software-Verlag, Pearson Germany, 2004, ISBN 3-8272-6695-5 , p. 669 ff, ( limited preview in the Google book search, and lesson 19 adjusting the monitor for color management to the previous footnote) .
  8. ↑ In fact, the CMY color space is used in printing, because with Hansa yellow and aniline yellow , mauve / fuchsine (all of which are harmful to health) and phthalocyanine turquoise ( Heliogen blue  B, from which the color name "cyan" comes), extremely brilliant cheap colorants were available early on were: In subtractive color mixing, small, materially related gray components quickly add up and make mixed colors cloudy. Pure black is added as the fourth process color, because the other three colorants then cannot contribute extensive dark components.
  9. ↑ See special forms of advertisements. In: Insa Sjurts (Ed.): Gabler Lexikon Medienwirtschaft. Springer, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8349-6487-8 , p. 23 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  10. ↑ a b see Diana Kakkar, Senay Gokcen: Color Code: Neon . on fashiontrendsetter.com , accessed Sept. 15, 2013 - with distinctive colorants and their hex codes.
  11. ^ Maryam Taheri: Color Trend: Neon. on: colourlovers.com , May 23, 2013 - with sample images of 80s and retro 80s design
  12. ↑ about: Neon Colors . In: Trend List - Exploring visual trends in contemporary graphic design.
  13. ↑ William Prince Metal, Boaz Keysar: Functional Theory of Illusory Conjunctions and Neon Colors. In: Journal of Experimental Psychology. Vol. 118, No. 2 American Psychological Association, 1989, p. 165190 ( pdf ( memento of the original dated February 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note . , psychology.uchicago.edu). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / psychology.uchicago.edu
  14. ↑ S. Grossberg, A. Yazdanbakhsh: stratification surface laminar cortical dynamics of 3D, transparency, and neon spreading. 3rd annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, FR43, 2003, p. 77 ff (online article: Neon Color Spreading and Transparency , cns.bu.edu)