The Social in the Visual

We’re big fans at Figures of Shahee Ilyas’ flags as pie charts. That got us thinking about the following information based on national colours. But this post has a clear antecedent in Uriah’s post, The personal body as information design. Have you ever pondered why so many nations seem to have two sets of national colours? Notice how with these examples, Australia, Italy, The Netherlands and Germany, the national football strip does not follow the national flag colours? And there are many more nationalities where the two do not coincide.

In Australia, for all the carry on in recent years surrounding our national flag, when we refer to our national colours we do not refer to those in the flag, the red, white and blue, but instead to the ‘green and gold’. The colours of the wattle, not the flag. In Italy, the blue, once the colour of the royal family, has been clung to despite the abolishment of their monarchy in the 1940s. Similarly, there’s a historical connection in the Dutch strip that precedes the current flag (rather allarmingly, the orange has historical connections with militant protestantism. Surprising for a famously broadminded culture).

In many cases, the national sporting colours seem to have a deeper connection to a national psyche, or to grass-roots sentiments about that country than do the colours imposed upon a nation via national flag through a top-down approach. What are your thoughts on these disconnections between flags and ‘true’ national colours?

Could colour be used as a human geographical tool? Stuart’s post raises some great questions about colour as information. I argue that the shift towards modernity has severed the link between colour and the natural material.The boom of the textile industry and of mass produced products has caused the public in developed parts of the world, to behave as an information design. Unique and bespoke items are reserved for the rich and elite.Large quantities of identical coloured shirts, indicates that groups of people are wearing the same colour at the same time. What can these patterns tell us? Certain patterns of colour can be attached to an occupation. Designers wear black t-shirts; blue scrubs and white for medical services; bright orange for road workers. Would particular patterns emerge if we examined one occupation, like education? (more…)