Check this out. A colorscript for an animation. I've never seen anything like this. Amazing. Are there more filmmakers doing this kind of thing? However, even more amazing is the animation itself. Surely one of the most moving short videos I ever saw. Go see it. Now.

Moving from yearly fee to monthly subscription

Colorjive, your webapp to visualize new paint colors, is going from a yearly fee to a monthly subscription.

Colorjive has recently been updated. For most part, existing features have been improved to make the software even better. However, the most important change is a switch from a yearly license fee to a monthly subscription. If Colorjive is only used for a short while, it will actually be cheaper to use. In fact, it can be used full featured for free for a month. Subscriptions can be terminated immidiately. So if you don't need Colorjive anymore, there no reason to keep paying.

The update reflects a change in the way we market Colorjive. As of now Colorjive will primarily cater professional paint contractors and designers. Experience shows that visualizing new colors in photos is a valuable sales and communication tool for professionals. 

Existing users will be able to keep using their current account till the (paid) license runs out. In fact, we'll offer all existing users an unlimited number of uploads from now on, whereas the old 'premium' license only offered 10 uploads. This is our way of saying 'thank you' to our first customers. When you current account runs out, you'll have the choice to sign up for the new monthly subscription.

New and improved:

• $ 12 a month for unlimited use.

• Video tutorials

• New color browser

• Refreshed homepage

• New and improved ways of sharing photos with clients.

• And many more small incremental improvements.

I hope you will all enjoyed a refreshed Colorjive. If you have any comments or suggestions, you're welcome to mail us at feedback@colorjive.com.

Colorwriting Machine

Wow, this is so cool!

Tyree Callahan converted a 1937 Underwood Standard typewriter into a colorwriter. He replaced the ink pads and letter keys by colored paint pads and markers. So that you can 'write' color instead of text. I love the idea...

You can go vote for this work of art here.

Red Faces over Yellow Bridge

Oops. 

A bridge that should have been painted blue was accidentally painted yellow. The people of Upton-upon-Severn, a town in England were quite upset to find that the muted Dutchess Blue that was chosen in a six week public consultation had been replaced by a bright yellow. 

Never underestimate the public outrage when picking the color wrong. 

Can You Recognize Coca-Cola Red?

You probably know as well as I do that Coca-Cola Inc. goes to great lengths to have the exact same shade of red on every can and bottle of coke in every corner of the world. So, one would expect to be able to recognize Coca-Cola red, right? Else, why go through all the trouble? Here's a test. Can you recognize Coca-Cola red in the 3 images below? All images, including the photo of the can, were meticulously color calibrated.

Please take the poll to vote for the most likely contender. After you take the poll you can visit this page to see which image is actually Coca-Cola red.

Poll: Which has CocaCola red?

• image 1
• image 2
• image 3

Result:

Nasa Produces Nano Black

This week, NASA announced that they managed to produce real black black paint. The image shows the structure of the nano paint under a microscope.

What is black? There was an interesting discussion on Quora, the other day, about black. Go check it out, some interesting things came up. My own definition of black, as written on Quora, is:

"No light. The perfect black surface reflects or emits no light at all."

Which implies that black paint absorbs all light. However, the blackest of black paints only absorbs some 90% of light max. So black paint isn't actually black. It's dark grey. And then there's the invisable light: infrared and ultraviolet. They're more important than you think, because they contribute much to the heat buildup in a paint surface. It is always said that a dark surface becomes warmer than a light surface. While this may be true in most cases, it disregards the effect of UV and infrared. Some dark surfaces won't get as warm as you'd expect because they won't absorb UV and infrared.

So now Nasa came up with a black paint that absorbs up to 99.5% of all light, including infrared and UV. If you would use that paint on your house, it would become a bit of a black hole. I wouldn't recommend it. But I'd love to see it nonetheless.

Pedro Gadanho, master Colorist

Here's some work of a Portugese architect and master colorist: Pedro Gadanho. Just in case you haven't come across him yet.

The image shows a house in Torres Vedras. I particularly like the way he defines shapes and spaces by use of color. He totally gets it. Visit Design Milk for more inspiring images.