Cornflower.
Quick,
when I say cornflower, what color do you think of?
And
you’re right. It’s a blue.
Wait.
Blue?
Yup.
Cornflower is a blue. Which made absolutely no sense to me, but
I don’t think I’ll ever forget it now.
Terry
was ordering some clothes recently. She decided that one item
was something she’d like in a couple of different colors. Cornflower
was one of the choices.
Just
so happened that of the items ordered, that one was delayed and
shipped separately. I was the one that saw the e-mail notice about
it. And, for whatever reason—I have no defense here, just stating
the facts—it immediately went into my head that something yellow
was on the way.
Bit
stunning when Terry opened the package a short time later.
The
thing is, yellow or blue or whatever, colors are changing. There’s
very little room for green and red and blue. Instead, look for
options closer to spring leaves, fire engine, and pool house.
And
beyond that thing, the real thing is that marketing and advertising
and more is changing. This isn’t really about colors. It’s about
simplicity. A delicate balance between creativity and connections.
And all around the world, welcome to the overcomplicated delivery
of simple concepts.
Now,
look, I get it. There are about forty-five million shades of blue
out there. And for forty-three million of them, it’s easy to spot
the differences. Once you wade through light, dark, royal and
navy, it’s fair to conclude that the obvious names are going to
be exhausted early in the process.
Consider
green for a moment. Let’s look toward kelly, spring, pastel, jade,
shamrock and emerald. We’ve all heard of kelly green, and the
others are familiar, but can you place those six shades into some
type of order in your head?
And
how about chartreuse? Come on, we’re friends. You can admit it,
you never knew if chartreuse was yellow or green. (And even if
you want to be funny and say you do know, I’m willing to bet you
didn’t know that harlequin is a color in the same general neighborhood
as chartreuse.)
But
there are, literally, hundreds of shades of green out there. Hundreds.
Plural. And, as noted with blue, green is not alone.
I
could flash maroon and burgundy in front of you, and you could
say either was maroon… or either was burgundy… and most of us
would shrug our shoulders and agree. The idea that maroon is a
red that draws on browns while burgundy has purples is lost on
the majority.
Which
is how I’m going to bring us back to the cornflower.
Cornflower
is blue. The actual flower is blue. The name makes sense. This
is not about corn.
A
few years from now, I may forget about this discovery and find
myself surprised when cornflower is brought back to my attention
for some reason. And you know what? That’s ok. Because you’ve
already forgotten what color harlequin is.