What Color is this Dress?

What Color is this Dress?

While I’m fascinated with the science behind why the internet can’t seem to agree on the color of the dress—posted by swiked to her tumbler on February 25th—I’m more interested in how it affects my job as a graphic designer. Wired created a tl;dr article that essentially boils down to this: our brains are programmed to swap colors based on supporting visual stimuli (such as the warm glow of incandescent bulbs, or the cool palette of a winter night).

Naturally, this doesn’t much affect the world of user interface design, but it does present an issue when designing packaging, environmental pieces, and print advertising. Add to this the psychology behind color, visual aesthetics and trends, and the brain’s interpretation of how these colors make you feel, and we’ve tripled the challenge of our jobs.

Long story short: the dress is blue and black.

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