Greyscale world: where is all the colour?

It’s September and I’ve moved into my new student accommodation – it’s time to liven up how my room looks, starting with the essentials. Maybe some bedding. I head over to the superstore to find colourful bedsheets and pillowcases. The only feasibly affordable bedsheet, however, is grey. In fairness, they’ve tried to liven up the label by saying it’s ‘fossil grey’, and yes, when I get home, it’s an appropriately soft texture, but then I measure it against the rest of the colours in the room.

I frown. It’s all just two colours. I know that sounds like an exaggeration – there have to be more colours, surely! But no. It’s just two: off-white and grey.

When I finally get back the luggage I had stored up during the summer, my first priority is to stick all my old posters on these walls. I save a little bit of extra money every week, so I can buy a bright blue bedsheet (‘coral blue’) and pair it with a bright orange (‘saffron’) pillowcase set.

I think of my room back home then. Of the bright blue walls, my pink bedroom door, an orange door leading to the bathroom, the bright red and yellow study tables. I miss it instantly. Then, I move on.

The YouTuber, Kurtis Conner, usually making light-hearted commentary of outlandish internet trends, starts reflecting on all the colour the world has lost over the years

As this phenomenon continues to weigh on my subconscious, a few months later I stumble across a video essay from a creator who usually just makes funny videos. This video is different, though. The YouTuber, Kurtis Conner, usually making light-hearted commentary of outlandish internet trends, starts reflecting on all the colour the world has lost over the years. By the end of this video, I’m not laughing.

I think of growing up with the Windows XP – with the bright green and blue idyllic desktop wallpapers, and built-in games where you made colourful cakes. Of the old Google logo, lowercase and lined with serifs. Of the word-art feature on Microsoft Word, where every letter could be coloured with a gradient that featured all the colours of the rainbow.

Sure, the colours were sometimes oversaturated. Too bright, too much, too ‘everything’. Over the years, the world has gradually moved towards minimalism. Think of the Corporate Memphis or Alegria art style: overly tall ‘people’, who really just resemble blobs, strategically coloured to reflect whichever brand it’s portraying. At its core, although occasionally colourful, this style removes unique embellishments, reduces colours that truly do contrast each other, and ends up with a result that is truly uninspiring. That fades into the background, evoking no awe, no surprise, nothing. Not just that, but also, this is everywhere. Sure, it’s present in the usual suspects – social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, but also in random railway stations (I remember seeing it in Tile Hill a few months ago).

I remember all the times I have stood at the bus stop with my friends, looking at the cars go by, and the way we get excited about a yellow Fiat, a parrot-green van, anything that isn’t grey

I start reading more about this after the video – sure enough, people have started to notice. Adrian Chiles in his column for The Guardian speaks about cars, writing, “Having chosen a new lease car, I had to select a colour. I was spoilt for choice: there were only shades of grey available, so I plumped for grey.” I remember all the times I have stood at the bus stop with my friends, looking at the cars go by, and the way we get excited about a yellow Fiat, a parrot-green van, anything that isn’t grey, white, black or navy blue. Every time.

This lack of colour being an apparent problem sneaks up on me, and sneaks up on most people, really, because it has been such a gradual process. No one woke up and decided, ‘we’re making everything grey now!’. No, we had all these colours and frills and embellishments, and we experimented with minimisation and constraint. This experimentation, which at the time was unique, has over time become sensation. Now, it’s a trend.

We can perhaps trace this back to the early to mid-20^th Century, with the Bauhaus movement, but if we take a moment to compare the minimalism from then with the corporatised minimalism of today, there are stark contrasts. One of my favourite artworks from that period is Paul Klee’s Ships in the Dark, which utilises sharp shapes and a truly compelling colour palette, with black, orange, yellow, brown, and blue. The blue is a colour choice that continually intrigues me, because it stands in contrast with all the relatively compatible colours.

Look at pictures from the Facebook Alegria style guide. All colours carefully curated to complement each other, even if it means a purple face or green biceps every now and then. There is no uniqueness, no deliberate choice to have the spectator feel anything.

Therefore, when I think about the loss of colour, and serifs and all else, not just in art and design, but the world, I think of how these popularised and corporatised style guides have been adapted by every other company. Not of deliberately crafted artworks that utilise minimalism by way of artful constraint.

This widespread adoption seems to do the opposite of what minimalistic art movements set out to do

This widespread adoption seems to do the opposite of what minimalistic art movements set out to do – instead of establishing uniqueness, it complies with sameness. In addition to this, it pervades everything, and it does so gradually. When I try to make a poster on Canva, I also gravitate towards sleek fonts and muted colours – nothing truly bold or exciting. Just something that looks well put together.

In times like these, I think back on the video I watched, and I realise I miss it. I miss the tacky rainbow word art, the colourful websites where you could play random games, the old Google logo, the bright blue Twitter bird. I think many of us miss it. It’s probably why we romanticise European cities with colourful houses and vibrant panoramic views.

I’m afraid the grayscale trend has been going on for far too long. If we decide to pivot towards bright colours suddenly, I won’t complain. Hopefully, it’s overnight, and tomorrow morning, when I go to the superstore, I’ll see bedding of all conceivable colours, and all will be right again.