Color Schemes on Cellphones – why so drab?
September 18, 2008 by Jayvee Fernandez
Filed under Apple, Cell phone
I’ve always meant to write about this but I keep on forgetting as it seems to trivial. But in truth, it isn’t. A long time ago I wrote a piece about the “pink” in gadgets. And the recent unveiling of Apple’s colors of the rainbow + pink marketing campaign for the iPod brings to light how much detail Apple puts to color.
I’ve never seen mobile phones exhibit such vibrant colors. And yeah, even gadgets in general.
Many years ago a cult bag brand called Timbuk2 was founded. It’s core selling points were durability, practical use, and was made fit for messengers, hence the messenger bag design is what they’re most known for. But other than that, you’d notice that unlike their competing brand, Crumpler, Timbuk2 doesn’t go for the flashy, bright colors that their competitor stresses. The thesis behind the color reservation was so that their bags don’t stand out too much, subjecting it more to theft. Crumpler, and I’m sure other manufacturers see it another way and want to flaunt their bags.
There is no right or wrong with color schemes. My question now is why don’t cellphones have such daring color choices? Big companies like Nokia segregate their phone brands for the enterprise and “fun” markets and yet in the “fun” line we don’t see a lot of “fun” colors. Motorola tried this before with their RAZR line, but none of the colors really stood out. The new iPod colors are vivid. They are bright and eye catching. Hold one in arms and immediately, people will look. They stand out like a hot cover model on the front page of a magazine amidst other so-so covers on the rack.
I think it’s only a matter of time when we’ll start seeing bolder colors. The market seems to demand it with the kids finally growing up and wanting colorful choices out of the box, and we — we’re just getting older.
The Japanese company Softbank makes a “Pantone” phone in over 20 different colors. Cameron Diaz is in their commercials.