Colour for the Seven Ages of Man
I gave a talk at the 2012 TEDx conference, the topic of which was ‘The Generation Gap.’ It was suggested that I do this as a result of a one hour lecture I’d given previously, developed specifically for interior designers to explore how we experience colour differently throughout our lives.
The famous ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech from William Shakespeare’s comedy, ‘As You Like It,’ provided a framework for birth through to extreme old age, including colour for dementia design.
Were you aware that, as a generalisation, men and women use different words to describe a colour, or that there are colour preferences in young children which tend to run along gender lines?
This is all part of this shortened TEDx 13-minute talk below. One interesting aspect of colour which is not included is that we experience it in our brains, not in our eyes, and I’ll prove it to you now.
Look at the picture in this blog of the black dot on the red background. Please stare at this, and only this, for a full 30 seconds before moving your eyes to the dot with the white background. Finished and surprised? Your red cone cells were over-stimulated and shut down. As a result the opposite cone cells kicked in via your brain. We don’t ‘see’ colour, our brain creates it. You’ll find more about cone cells in the video presentation.
Shakespeare’s seven ages are: the infant, school boy, lover, soldier, justice, old man (or pantaloon) and extreme old age. For purposes of tying together the content, it is this final age which I relate to dementia design in the video. This is not because dementia is a result of extreme old age; indeed there are over 400 types of dementia which can strike at different ages and for completely different reasons. But it was expedient to set out the content this way as the main conclusion is that while we age in a linear fashion, our human needs are in fact circular and therefore relating again to the infant.
This later part of the talk also contains a quick overview of some of the basics of care home design including lighting, contrast and of course colour.
We welcome your contribution to ThirdAge.Design
You can write your own blog or submit evidence-based information and images, and we will compile the article and send it back to you for sign-off. Any images will require authority to be used on our site. The purpose of ThirdAge.Design is to share information of this type and your valuable input is encouraged. You will be credited!
The most effective blogs result from: 1) identifying a problem, 2) saying how you’ve approached it, and 3) the outcome.
NB: It’s essential that you obtain permission or any necessary clearances required for images that you post on the thirdage.design website. We request that any such images illustrate or support the point you wish to share.
