Homage to Sanzo Wada | Colour Art Print Series
Have you heard of the book A Dictionary of Colour Combinations by Sanzo Wada? — It’s captivated me; This is an overview of my journey producing A1 giclee prints as a homage to Wada's work on colour combinations.
The ripple of a loving gift:
I’m given this wonderful book as a Father’s Day gift from my lovely daughter a few years back.
It’s a small (110 x 150mm), tightly bound book full of colour combinations from Sanzo Wada 和田 三造 (1883–1967). Wada ‘reorganised the Japan Standard Color Association into the Japan Color Research Institute and assumed the post of chairman. In 1951 (Showa 26), where he completed Japan’s first comprehensive standard colour chart, “Color Standard” ’ (ja.wikipedia).
The book is based on Wada’s original 6-volume work of Sanzo Wada from the 1930s. We are accustomed to seeing colour combinations today, but it was pioneering and highly irregular back then.
‘This little gem of a book was what inspired color theory. I believe it was people at the Bauhaus they found it and we now understand color theory based on what this Japanese man put together.’ (Blake)
Using the colour combinations:
The 159 colours in the book fascinated me. They sit within 358 combinations. I spent many hours exploring. I have used the colours for both digital and print, and the colours have rendered beautifully.
As gorgeous as the book is, it’s very hard to navigate back and forth and cognitively keep the colours in mind. For example, the combinations are shown without the colour indexes, so you must look up the colours one at a time to get the values and any other sets they may appear in.
And by that time, I’d lost the combination. There is no way I can see all the colours in one go in the book. If I find a colour I like and want to see which other combinations it belongs to, it’s pretty tedious.
I wanted to use the colour combinations in my workflow and find a more accessible, flexible way to interact with the colours. I also wanted to know how the colours would print for reference, so I started exploring ways to do that.
There is a great online project by Dain M. Blodorn Kim https://github.com/dblodorn/sanzo-wada/ with data compiled and then updated and given a better representation from CMYK to RGB mapping https://github.com/mattdesl/dictionary-of-colour-combinations. This was a starting point for data exploration.
Computational notebooks:
I created several visualisations (over twenty notebooks!) using the Observable platform and D3.js to understand the book better. It allowed me to look at combinations differently and explore how many sets each colour repeats and how they are split.
I was especially interested in the pairs and which colours exist in multiple pairs.
Using Observable, a unique collaborative platform — allowed me to iterate and explore creatively. It allowed me to share and reuse my code and thought process.
Here are two super functional notebooks for quick reference:
Continuing the exploration:
The combinations in the book are split into pairs, triplets and quadruples. I’m moving on to exploring the triplets and the ways they can be represented. I found that both the triplets and quads need further explorations on the arrangement of the colours. For example, I started using the same three colours but in different shapes.
And also the same four colours but in varying quantities:
The arrangement, layout and quantity directly affect our perception, so I’m trying to create a layout which will give a decent, informed choice for the selection of palettes.
Every perception of color is an illusion, we do not see colors as they really are. In our perception, they alter one another. —Josef Albers
RGB to print:
Printers can now print in RGB; in fact, its preference. So that means that everything I do in SVG as long as I apply the correct profile, in my case, it was ‘CMYK: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2.icc’ to ‘sRGB IEC61966–2.1.icc’ (Converted with Relative Colorimetric and Black Point Compensation).
This is very powerful; I can create artwork in code using JavaScript and the DOM (in my case, I used Observable) and then export SVG and tweak and layout fine detail ready for print; I use Adobe Illustrator to generate print-ready PDF files.
Print as a medium:
I’m a massive fan of books, paper and prints — I don’t care how good screens get; paper holds magic. The tactile output gives me a break from the screen. Seeing all the colours in one go without a scrollbar and away from my desk allows me to process the combination more flexibly and naturally.
I used Hahnemühle German Etching for the paper, with its appealing, slightly warm base tone and mottled solid texture. It’s my preferred choice for vector art and Giclée art printing.
Summary of the art prints:
For my outcome, I’ve created four art prints designed to work alongside the book.
There is an index print; this shows the size of the sets from a distance, and each row holds all the information for every colour in the book.
There is a gridded set print; this shows every set that appears in the book. You can look up any colour, as every square has a set number and index of the colour.
There is additionally a concentric set print; it shows the same content as the index print without any textual data—focusing solely on the colours and volumes they belong in.
The final print is my core homage to Sanzo Wada. It uses concentric circles to show all the sets and colours with pairings. You can look up both the index of the colour and the combinations the colour sits in. It uniquely lets you see the primary colour and any pairing as overlaid concentric circles.
I have limited the run to 45 Giclée fine art A1 prints, which will be available soon, but you can contact me directly to reserve a print. I’m getting a set professionally framed, so I will include images once they arrive!
This has been a long but enjoyable haul of data visualisation to art prints that will complement A Dictionary of Colour Combinations by Sanzo Wada.
References:
Blake, K. (2014). Pamela Foeckler. [online] Chapter BE. Available at: http://www.chapterbe.com/2014/interviews/pamela-foeckler-artisan-jeweler/ [Accessed 15 Aug. 2023].
ja.wikipedia (2005). Wada Sanzo. [online] Wikipedia.org. Available at: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%92%8C%E7%94%B0%E4%B8%89%E9%80%A0 [Accessed 15 Aug. 2023].
The Annex Galleries (n.d.). Sanzo Wada Biography | Annex Galleries Fine Prints. [online] www.annexgalleries.com. Available at: https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/2464/Wada/Sanzo [Accessed 15 Aug. 2023].
