Ask HN: Measuring the Aesthetic Quality of a Set of Colors?

This is going to be a little more technical than I'd like, but it should be concrete enough to implement on a computer.<p>So, start with the color sphere: a unit sphere, and each point in the volume represents a color. Around the equater is arranged the hues, roygbiv. Moving north or south changes value, by adding white or black, respectively. Moving inwards toward the north-south axis reduces saturation; the exact center of the sphere is a perfectly neutral 50% gray.<p>Traditionally a set of colors is supposed to be 'harmonious' together if, when one constructs a polyhedron inside the color sphere, with each vertex being one of the chosen colors, the polytope formed has it's center of balance at the center of the sphere.<p>That is a 'designer' set of colors --- emotionally flat but visually pleasing. Emotional content is added by moving the centroid off center, charging the whole color set with a color 'cast'.<p>This definition, of course, fails when monochromatic schemes are chosen, but monochromatic schemes are almost always highly emotional unless a suitable accent color is chosen (usually a complementary, so as to move the COB to the center of the sphere).<p>For more information, read Itten, Keely, Albers, &#38;c.

First you need to understand the domain, then you can automate it:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory</a><p>Another challenge is what is it you want to achieve? Do you want people to say "ah, nice", or do you want them to "react" (click something for instance). Those two may be mutually exclusive in some instances, as generations of neon signage, "sales" banners and similar are living proof of.

<a href="http://colorschemedesigner.com" rel="nofollow">http://colorschemedesigner.com</a> lets you choose a main color and then generates a color scheme based on semi-objective criteria.

Hi there.<p>It's been quite a few years for me since I took color theory in college for my art degree. I think that you can automate color compliments with 2, 3, 4, or x colors by using "vectors" to compute the opposite hues... cutting the HSV model in halves for two colors, thirds for three, etc.<p>To get to the aesthetics, you'll have to use voting or surveys, and the reason is somewhat straightforward. Here are a few resons (not all):<p>The appeal of colors change over time with fashion and trends. In the US, mint green and canary yellow in the 1930s, white and cherry red in the 1940s, the list goes on for consumer goods and their colors. Think of vintage goods and their colors. Pantone produces color forecasts and tweaks their colors over time to reflect tastes.<p>Cultural differences. Color symbolism plays a large role - after all part of a designer's skill is selecting the right color for the specific context of an assignment. White for mourning in Asia != white for a wedding. One thought is that the region or location may be significant in the aesthetic judgment. If I remember correctly, the ArthurAnderson logo was orange because it was a color that could be used globally without negative meaning.<p>One last note, which comes from my training in a modernist driven school, is the form and the function of a design in black and while should be rock solid and work before adding color and the complexity... I think this was taught so that the novice students we were would learn the basics of typography, form, and balance before getting into colors.<p>As to the aesthetics: You can use the voting model like colorlovers (I hope that older votes are when tracking current color trends), use A/B testing if you are a web designer, or fall back to a company like Pantone to help you find current trends. Someone like google might be able to tie click paths to color schemes ... in other words data mine to establish what is a trend.

Unfortuantely aethetics are subjective - the best you can do is some machine-learning to recreate a "subjective" mind. As you've discovered, some combinations can be ruled out immediately on objective grounds, but deciding why one set of colours is "better" than another when they have similar properties is something that is not objectively understood. Even more difficult, the context in which you use the colours affects their "aesthetic quality".

There is an existence proof "for some value of objective": Your and my own subjective tastes are also an objective determinant. With enough data from people, one might find some function over the domain of colour that yields pleasing combinations.<p>I'd suggest you put your candidates up on <a href="http://www.colourlovers.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.colourlovers.com/</a> and have them vote.

Aesthetics is a silly metric. We evolved color combination reactions to find food, like fruits in a forest, or to find healthy mates.<p>Every situation is different. A color palette like on kuler or colorlovers doesn't represent the real environment those colors will be found in. It doesn't include amounts, gradations and lighting, all things our brains evolved to process. For example we need to compensate for changes in lighting on a forest with fruits, because we'll be there at different times of day.<p>You could develop an objective aesthetic rating for a domain like picking fruits, based on what time of day should you pick a fruit to get the best taste, nutritional content.<p>Giving arbitrary ratings to color palettes has already been done on kuler and by color theorists, but when the reasons behind the ratings are not understood, you might as well use a neural net to replicate those ratings, using the palettes and ratings as training data. Black box either way.

I learned a lot with "Interaction of Color" <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Interaction-Color-Expanded-Josef-Albers/dp/0300115954/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#38;s=books&#38;qid=1273418129&#38;sr=8-1" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Interaction-Color-Expanded-Josef-Alber...</a>

Color Theory for Designers: <a href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/28/color-theory-for-designers-part-1-the-meaning-of-color/" rel="nofollow">http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/28/color-theory-for-...</a>

Make a site that "learns" by asking designers.<p>Or just make a site that claims to, and then you have somewhere you can post your color schemes every time you need to test one.