The Color Test and Red Wine

So.. back to the book that Charles gave me. It’s called The Luchster Color Test and a German guy wrote/created it back in the 60s and apparently it’s still well respected.

Basically, there are 8 color cards (shown above) and you shuffle them and then lay them out in front of you. From there, you pick the color that appeals to you the most and then you lay it out in front of you, face down, and there is a number on the back of the card. You then do this for the remaining 7 cards, picking which one you like best and then flipping it over. The cards should be arranged from left to right, starting with your most liked color and ending in your least liked color, and then you record the numbers on a piece of paper

And then you shuffle the cards and repeat the process again. From there, it tells you how to combine the numbers that you received and in the back of the book, there is a way to interpret what you picked, similar to a personality test. I did this for about two hours and I’m still reading to find how I could connect this to lighting.

Going through three of these tests, I got back numerous results, because every two numbers paired together have a different interpretation. So, I’ll share a couple of mine.

Since the numbers correlate with a color (0= grey, 1= dark-blue, 2= green, 3= red, 4= yellow, 5= violet, 6= brown, 7= black) , each number/color has a different meaning. Numbers 1-4 are considered as essential human needs, so when they show up earlier in your best liked colors, that means those needs are being fulfilled in your everyday life; and when they show up later in your preferred colors (i.e., one of the last three colors you picked), that means that those needs are being ignored for the time being. So the first time I took the test, my numbers looked something like this:

1 0 6 5 3 4 7 2 4 0 2 1 7 6 3 5

So- the top row is from the first time I laid the cards out and picked my favorite colors 1-8 (dark-blue, grey, brown, violet, red, yellow, black, green). And the bottom line is from when I reshuffled the cards, laid them out, and did the process again (yellow, grey, green, dark-blue, black, brown, red, violet). When you have your two rows of numbers, you then pair them up. The first two of each row are given the sign “+”. So it would look like “+1+0” and “+4+0”. The following two numbers of each row are given the sign of “x”. So, “x6x5” and “x2x1”. After that, the “=” sign is used, “=3=4” and “=7=6”. The last two numbers of each row are given the “-” sign. “-7-2” and “-3-5”.

Now for the interpretations:

The plus signs represent strong preference for that color, so my strong preferenced colors are Dark-Blue/Grey and Yellow/Grey. My personality based on these colors is as follows: Needs release from stress. Longs for peace, tranquility and contentment. Needs a way of escape from all that oppresses her and is clinging to vague illusory hopes.

The “x” sign stands for a preference towards a color, the “=” sign stands for an indifference towards a color and the “-” sign stands for a rejection of the color. I could go into each of my results but that would be very excessive, and they were all along the lines of the two I told you. I’m not exactly sure if I agree with the results I got… I always think I could use a release from stress, but reading on in my results, everything got very intense and made me sound very depressed. Charles called his results “utter bullshit”- which brings me back to the point as to why I’m even reading this book (???).

So anyway, my day of doing color tests came to an end and I headed back to Regent’s to get ready to go to a Comedy show with everyone.

It was at The Top Secret Comedy Club which was underground, beneath some restaurant. The comedy was quite good, and we even got made fun of for being Americans (i.e. one of the comedians asked people from the Program if we knew what state we were from in America.. “Awe you guys are from America? Where at..? Do you know..?”). They had cheap beer and lots of laughs, so it was my definition for a great night.

Part 2 (too lazy to create a new entry):

Today (6/19/2015), I had a meeting at 3 p.m. with the head of design at the company called Philips. Now if you’re like me, it would’ve totally slipped your mind that the company I’m referring to, is this company:

So this meeting was a pretty big deal.

The whole purpose of this meeting was to see if there was any research to help in my research. Our end goal is to find a way to have clients use the lighting technology at 8 Northumberland in a more useful way than just picking “pretty colors”. The lighting technology that the venue houses is so extensive, and its features can actually make you more intentive and help you concentrate during such events, like conferences.

We all met in Boyd’s (the restaurant that is attached to 8 Northumberland and that my boss also owns), and Charles asked if we would like anything to drink (Charles also followed with: “Isn’t this great Austin, everytime you’re with me you get to drink!”). The head of design from Philips, Rowena, asked for red wine (I squirmed at the thought of it… but I agreed to have some with the both of them because I asked for white wine and Charles asked what kind of white wine and I don’t know my white wines so I settled for the red wine, and it wasn’t half bad). So let’s just take a second to note I was at a business meeting drinking red wine, because it took a little while for me to wrap my head around that (I felt very sophisticated.. it may have been the red wine, but I think some of it was my pencil skirt). But anyway, once we all had our “refreshments”, we began talking about the technology at Philips and their hue software (which is simply put as what makes the lights different colors). She told us how the U.S. hue preference is red, and Germany’s is blue, and that all of this information is available because of the little box that we all check that says “I have read and agree to the Terms & Conditions”… so what you’re agreeing to when you check that box for some companies is for them to access data from your device (Charles then stated “Big BIG Brother is everywhere).

We then talked about an experiment that Rowena is about to finish up. She’s been staying in places with little to no natural light, out in the open and seeing how the elements effect her. She isn’t finished so she couldn’t go into too much detail, but she did inform us that it is very cold in the winter and its hard to make a fire with no light to guide you.

After the picking of brains, Charles took us on a tour of the venue and I finally got to see the lights in action (and even got to control some myself, as well).

He showed us how they present the ballroom to potential clients, and showed us a video in which the lights respond to. So when colors in the video change, so do the lights in the room. It was so great to actually experience that. Rowena informed me that Charles and 8 Northumberland is the first venue to actually take advantage of this technology, and that it was originally intended for gaming systems at home.

While we were walking around and chatting, Rowena gave me her contact info and invited me to come to their Boston headquarters some time… I don’t know when I’ll be in Boston next, but it sounds like a great opportunity.

After a couple hours of chatting, our meeting ended and I made my way back to Regents. Only

4 days on the job and I feel like my life has been impacted so much. I’m really in for a trip these next couple of weeks.

So, I’ll leave you with some greats pics of 8 Northumberland (finally)