Studies / More color, less attention

More color, less attention.

Area establishes hierarchy. Attention doesn't always obey it.

Open · collecting
A1
A2
A3

The arrangement

Three colors. One frame. Three regions in fixed positions, holding the same amounts of space in every arrangement. The only thing that changes between A1, A2 and A3 is which color occupies which region — each color takes the largest, the middle and the smallest region exactly once.

What changes

  • Which color occupies each region

What is held

  • The three colors
  • Region positions and their areas
  • Geometry, shape, spacing
  • Frame and display size

The first question

Which reads as the lead?

Look at each arrangement on its own before comparing them.

This question is about hierarchy — which color the composition organizes itself around. It is not a question about which color you noticed first. Those are different things, and this study keeps them apart on purpose.

The second question

The same arrangement, made smaller.

Nothing changes but the size at which it is seen.

Full
Feed
Thumb

A composition that reads clearly at full size can behave differently in the places people actually encounter it. That is the boundary this study is testing.

Lineage

Observed from

The historic color studies of Sanzo Wada. A relationship between three colors, taken as a starting point rather than as a conclusion.

Tested through

Three arrangements holding everything constant except which color occupies which region, then the same arrangement rendered at three sizes.

What we found

Not yet. This study is open and still collecting. When there is something worth stating, it will be stated here — with what it rests on, and where it stops.

Inspired by the historic color studies of Sanzo Wada.

About the sources