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by ryanhecht 497 days ago
John Hench (widely considered the coiner of the "go away" colors as it relates to WDI) brings up the concept of "go away" colors in the color theory chapter of his book "Designing Disney" when discussing how colors establish the identity of a space (this is partially quoted in the Wikipedia article):

> One particular challenge in designing the interior of the [American Adventure pavilion at EPCOT Center] was the metal safety railing we had to include by law, which, being out of place in the middle of a Colonial staircase, undermined the identity of the main entrance room. We chose a neutral gray-brown for the railing, a 'go away' color that did not call attention to itself, even though it was entirely unrelated to the Colonial color scheme. In this way ,we got a functional safety railing that satisfies legal requirements without conflicting visually with the Colonial theme

https://archive.org/details/designingdisneyi0000henc/page/11...

Given how he talks about color in the rest of the book, I think Hench and other early Imagineers were coming at it from film/scenic design perspectives rather than scientific "here's how camouflage and blocking patterns work" perspective. I agree though, I'd love to have someone connect this artist-minded explanation with a scientific one!

1 comments

Thanks for the link!

Yes I think the interesting part is that artists figure this stuff out through massive amounts of observation experience and might not know why they get a positive outcome, it's very feelings based... but the fact that these feelings are often applicable on a broader human level is worthy of further investigation beyond practical application