Not Showing Initiative...

I knew that all the work I did would be viewed as nothing. I have done nothing in the eyes of my teachers, but I feel as if I have done everything. I had my entire graduation project turned upside down on me. I was supposed to test out color and emotion for myself, not visit a bunch of place. HOW IS THAT AN ACTION PLAN?

It's not very comforting, hearing from your teacher, who is supposed to help and support you, that you are going to fail. I wouldn't have failed if I had this class when I was supposed to, but I guess it's my fault that I didn't complain then.


Well, it's been fun I suppose... Not really... See you next year...

Well, That's Comforting...

Color Matters.... One of the best sources for my project that I have used a lot... Is apparently an attack site? At least, it is according to Mozilla. Regular internet explorer just tells me

"We're sorry. The Color Matters website is not available at this time.

Please check back June 5."

What do I do about this? I was just about to put this site in my webliography section of my website?

Why...

I've looked at so many different things when it comes to my graduation project. I've put so much work into researching and writing that paper...

I've looked at how colors affect emotions, how people use colors to convey emotions or describe them, I've looked at daycares and marketing... I've looked at how changing the colors of things affect us or our opinion of the object being changed...

Did I do all of this for nothing?

My project seems to have become how color affects us in general... Then what do I do?

I feel so lost. I've been trying to talk to teachers via e-mail so that I don't have to track them down and interrupt them, but they aren't responding. I need more than just a simple 5 minute conversation... I need 10-20 minutes of talking about things before I fall apart....

I'm going to fail....

Lost and Confused.

I'm doomed. Everything needs to be done by Friday (tomorrow). I don't even know what direction my action plan is speeding to anymore. I don't know where anything is going...

I've been pretty much told that everything I'm doing is wrong, so I don't know what to do with my paper or action plan.

I'm not sure if I'm going to make it...

Daycare

Alright, so this post will be a lot like my post about advertising, except it will obviously be about daycare centers. Mrs. Savido suggested I take a look into daycare centers and what not around here, so I decided to do a tiny bit of web searching too.

This was one of the best pictures I can find. Not only is it brightly colored, but it may help teach kids patterns of colors. Also, the use of green suggests that these kids might be a bit calmer than usual (they sure look it in this picture too!). The yellow tables in the background suggest that they have more... wild? play areas.

Now for some of the worst daycare pictures I have found. This one wasn't too, too bad... But it is pretty bad if you ask me... It's peachy color makes me sick, and it doesn't seem to match at all. The white wall is pretty random, but they might have been going for a calmer area? I'm liking the blues and yellows, that seems calm yet excitable to me. It makes a nice balance. I'm still stuck on the horribleness of that peach color though....


Now, here is the absolute worse daycare I have ever seen. It's like they weren't even trying. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't think that this daycare in any way inspires creativity and fun learning. It looks like an office building. It's plain, it's boring, and it's.... Too wide open too.


I would suggest brighter tables, a different carpet (not the blue rug though, I love the blue rug). I mean, those random tents and leaf things are really cool, I think the place needs more of that. Kids need to be excited about learning and interacting with other kids if you ask me....

That's all on that for now I guess....

Bouncing Back to Something Again....

Color Therapy. Something that I have looked at a lot during my study of colors. I've never been sure if it was significant (or true enough) to actually look into. I suppose it is relevant though (at least a bit) and I need more information to shove into my paper.

I also don't know if I'm supposed to change the entire focus of my paper or what.... If I am, I don't think I am. I think it properly reflects the research I have done when it comes to colors. Maybe I just need more about the emotion aspect of it? I'm not sure. Maybe it should just be how color affects us in general?

Anyways, I should get back to my original point of this post.

Color Therapy. Load of crap, or worth saying SOMETHING about?

In ancient Egyptian mythology, healing with color was discovered by a god by the name of Troth (Which is the equivalent to Hermes). Color healing was a thing of magick ... Anyways, they used certain colored stones (and powders, creams, and whatever else can be colored I guess) and also colored certain healing/treatment places certain colors.

This information (that I kinda sorta summarized) can be found here : http://www.spiritual.com.au/articles/healing/color-therapy-1hgraham.htm

I don't feel like summarizing the whole thing just for myself (I know no one really reads this, so there would be no point in me asking my imaginary readers if the information is really relevant...)

Interesting Advertising

I decided to test out a few advertising strategies.

Blue (light blue) is supposed to be a really good color for advertising milk.
What about yellow though?
Now, I didn't really look into how yellow may affect the situation, but yellow can be seen as a sickly color. In this case, I thought of puss.

A similar switch that I had done involved frozen foods



Now, what is the # 1 color you want to avoid if you are advertising for meat?

Of course! Using green to advertise meat would suggest mold.
My last experiment with advertising stems back to my old small business class. Here is a poster I designed to advertise my business

And here is the same poster in a few other colors...



The last poster was a more recent edit. I used black because I have read that men prefer darker colors. (Also, the last pizza poster remings me of the Steelers, which might also attract business)

So, which advertisements here do you think would sell better? (Any of the ads presented here in this post today)

P.S.-- Here is the link that inspired this post
http://belikeliquid.com/blog/marketing-blog/the-effects-of-color-in-marketing/

Turned all the way around again

Well, I have to re-write my entire paper. I am entirely turned around yet again. I really should have had grad project last trimester. I can't think syraight right now, my eyes are burning, I can't breathe, I basically feel like crap.... And I'm supposed to comprehend all of the things I need to do for my paper.

Paper Progress

I turned my paper in for teacher edits. I think I gave it to the teacher that would edit it the harshest, so I'm hoping I don't go too crazy with trying to fix all of the edits and make it perfect. I got an e-mail back from the children's museum, I'm going to e-mail her back in a minute here. Right now I'm just feeling really sick.

Also, I have to look into the professor guy....

Alright Then,

Finally, self revisions of my paper are complete. Now I just need to start sorting through the other pile of things I need to do.

A special thanks to Ms. Anderson, for sending me a plethora of links relating to my grad project.

That also leads me to a concern... There are so many things I can do with this project, and so many things that can affect anything I choose to do with this project. I hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew, I can't afford to this last trimester.

Outline so Far...

How Colors Affect Emotions

I. Intro. .

A. Studies
B. Science projects

II. What colors do what?

A. . Explain what the sources I used said about the different colors
1. . Warm colors= comfort and warmth-anger and hostility (Cherry)
2. .Cool colors= calm, yet sad or indifferent (Cherry)
3. . (Johnson)
4. . (Mood chart)
5. . (color and mood)
6. . (Franco)
7. . (Color wheel)
8. . (Mood ring)

III. Why do colors affect emotions?

A. . Past experience
1. . “Regardless of what your left brain may tell you, color symbolizes and triggers emotions, memories and ideas or thoughts without you even realizing it.” (understanding)
2. . Daffodils inspiring hope (ACS)

B. . Gender?
1. . “Thomas, Curtis, and Bolton (1978)”—72 Nepalese people interviewed, women listed more color names than men (Khouw)
2. More girls liking purple than guys (Hallock)
3. “Purple stands out as a feminine color because it is chosen almost exclusively by women as a favorite color and is strongly disliked by men. Traditionally associated with royalty,the color purple is also spirtual, romantic, and mysterious” (Bear).
4. . Men prefer orange to yellow, girls are opposite (Khouw)
5. . This is changing [manly men wearing girly colors in sports] (color by numbers)

C. Other Factors
1. . . “Birren states, ‘With maturity comes a greater liking for hues of shorter wave length (blue, green, purple) than for hues of longer wave length (red, orange, and yellow).’” (Hallock)
2. Old people can’t see dark colors well (color by number)

a. . people are effected more by the combination of hue, value, chroma, warmness or coolness (Khouw)
b. .
c. .

IV. How can colors affect learning environments?

A. . (Willard)
1. Pink locker room = less aggression (Nolan)

V. What other things can colors improve? ((Work in progress))

A. . The workplace
1. .
2. .
3. .
B. . Homes
1. .
2. .
3. .
C. . Business
1. . Websites
2. . blue=business like [websites] but cold on its own (Nolan)
3. . margarine color marketing (color by numbers)
D. Therapy? (questionable)
1. . Increase blood circulation(Cherry)
2. .Red, Anemia and blood conditions (Stefanidakis)
3. .Yellow= Stomach, liver, intestines, skin healing (Stefanidakis)
4. . Indigo = skin problems (Cherry)
5. .Indigo = blood problems (Stefanidakis)
VI.
VII. Conclusion

Not Making it....

Well, I'm s till really, really, really behind on my paper. I'm writing this so I can take a breather and possibly organize some thought. (Or perhaps I'm writing just to rant a bit...)

Right now, I'm still only on two pages of the actual paper being written. I've been trying to build my outline up a bit more before returning to the paper. It's horrible. I'm having problems finding things related to my foundation questions. I based my foundation questions on what I wanted to learn through my experiment (that I won't fully be able to test do to time)... I did not create questions that could easily be researched. Every source either gives me irrelevant information, contradicts most of my other information, or gives me a HUGE run around.

It seems I'm the only one with this problem though, mostly everyone else is done.
No word back from the Children's Museum either.

I don't think I'm going to pass this year....

Shift in Direction Again.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/color/

Mr. Hamilton suggested I look into this guy.
He also suggested somehow doing an experiment without people being aware of me doing one.
I had a lot more to say here, but I have a lot more to do elsewhere. I'm swamped at the moment.

What I'm up to::
- Fixing up Literary review
- Thinking about website
- Taking more notes
- Looking into this guy ( Eric Rubenstein )
- Thinking about action plan
- Waiting for reply from Children's Museum
- Trying not to lose my mind
- Trying not to fail

Made The Call

I finally called the Children's museum (well, the assistant manager). She was really nice about all of it. I feel like I may have seemed impolite though, I sort of rushed through what I had written down to say (and I actually didn't get to the other questions I was going to get to)

Anyways, she's going to e-mail me sometime next week after she gets in touch with the people that do the program to see if they would be ok with it.

Frustration

So, I'm no where near done with my paper. Why? Well, I'm sure I could give you a bunch of reasons, but you will only see them as excuses.

Mainly though, I'm not happy with the way it's turning out. It sounds elementary and it basically just sucks. the more I look at it and try to write it, my headache gets bigger.

Literary Review and Web Site

My web site is coming along fantastically. Most of my pages are all linked to each other, and every page has a link to this blog. It's very colorful, and works along with my project. I'm hoping it won't give people a headache though, or confuse them...

My paper on the other hand, that's slow progress. It probably doesn't help that I am trying my creative writing class's "crappy" first draft method. My very first draft is probably going to sound very elementary. My goal is to get all of the facts down, and tweak the working later. I'm afraid that I might be judged because of that though.

Here is my introduction though

Everything has color. Color is in the eyes of adults and young children alike. At their young age, children already begin to create their own opinion of a color, and associate that color to other things. Most children will be taught things like, blue is used to represent sadness, red represents anger, and other similar color emotion associations. The question is then, if a color can be associated with feeling an emotion, can seeing that color affect the way that you feel? If the walls around you are green, does it make any difference on your emotions? Colors can affect our nervous systems, (more specifically the pituitary gland, which relates to hormones) therefore altering the way we feel, work, learn, or think.

This might also change. Although I know that it is hormones and what not, it has a lot to do with past experiences and color association. I might also change the order of my outline.

The outline goes from the introduction, to brief facts about what colors are said to do what, to the why all of those are different depending on the source.

It's confusing. It's also really hard to distance myself from the topic and just state the facts...

Never Enough

I thought it would at least be a little later in this trimester before I started breaking down, but I guess I was wrong. I've actually been working my but off this whole time just to get told that it's not enough. Especially considering how hard it is for me to make decisions and accept that whatever I'm working on is ok enough to turn in.

I've been working on notes, my outline, fixing my works cited, working on my website, figuring out what to say to the children's museum, working out the kinks in my action plan, and atempting to organize my thoughts in here. I've been working. That's actually rare for me when it comes to things like this.

I was trying to do the outline without actual notes.... Do we need a certain number of notes? That's..... Grrr.

Turns out we do. Yay. What fun.

Website

I've moved onto working on my website a bit. I find it kind of funny how I decided to calm down by switching to my website, thinking I would have things more under control with that. Well, remembering how to work with dreamweaver is almost as bad as the paper work I have been doing.

I can't remember how to change text colors. I know I knew how to do that before, because I made a very colorful website for tech class once.

At least I have a basic idea of how I'm planning to make it look though. I'm thinking rainbow background with a black centered.... table? that serves as the main portion where I type... thing.... Yeah, you would have to see it I guess.

Outline....

So, I'm working on my outline. It's coming along nicely, and it's not that hard to do it seems. My main problem is that I'm not sure how I'm going to do my second paragraph. My second paragraph is basically what I've found websites had to say about colors and what they represent/what emotions they cause. There are at least six sources per color. What do I do?

Do I list all of the colors and sources like (ex) :
Red (Color, color wheel, Mood)
Orange (Color, color wheel, Mood)
Yellow(Color, color wheel, Mood)
So on and so forth?

In my paper though, I guess it would have to be like (ex):
Red can cause increased heart rate (Color), and represents anger (color wheel),.... (So on and so forth)?

I fixed up my works cited to have the sites I'm pretty sure I will use (it now has the sites I just found). The problem is, I forget when I originally accessed them, so they all say I accessed them today....

I'm still having problems finding some last minute sources on some of my foundation questions though. I based all of my questions on the things I wanted to test, not things about colors and emotions that I wanted to research. There is very little on the actual affects of colors on people and how things like gender and age play into it. There is, however things about what colors they seem to prefer, but that's not exactly what I was hoping for...

In other news, I have the numbers I need to contact the Children's Museum, I just need to throw together a rough outline of what I'm going to say (and maybe some interview questions if they decide to jump into my interview idea too). So, I've been working on what to say while trying to build the courage to call.

Lastly, there is my website. I'm waiting on Mr. Mayes for that though.

New Findings (Sorting out my thoughts)

I'm starting to wonder what I even did last year. I mean, I know I did work, and I found a lot of things out, but it just doesn't seem to be enough. It doesn't help that every day I seem to learn something new that throws my thought process way off track again.

First, I'm not exactly sure of how to site one of my sources (I will probably ask someone later, after I've fried my brain over it)
The source: http://www.leadered.com/pdf/Color%20white%20paper.pdf
This is where most of my notes on color and learning come in.

Now, my second dilemma also has to do with sources I suppose. All of my research on what colors cause what emotions are from different sources. Does that mean that every time in my paper when I say what color causes what emotion I have to site it a ton of times?

For example: Red causes increased heart rate (source one), excitement (source six) and represents love (source three), Passion (source five) and fire (source five) ?

I mean, some of the color meanings and emotions that I've found correspond, but some don't...

Moving along...
I found another person who tested colors and emotions...

http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/nsfall99/FinalArticles/Final1.HowColorAffectsMoo.html

They just did a bunch of surveys on different colors of paper it seems.

I have bookmarked a lot of what may be useful sites. My main goal today was gathering sources so I can do all (if not most) of the notes at once. (I'm still wondering why I didn't get notes on certain things)

Apparently color affects emotions because it affects our nervous system
http://cognitive-psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_colors_affect_emotional_physical_health

I agree most with the statement that it is in association.
http://www.cis.rit.edu/fairchild/WhyIsColor/shortAs.html

"Q: Why do colors affect people's moods? What is it that makes minds react differently to different colors?
A: Colors and moods are of great interest and also the subject of a lot of misunderstanding. It seems that colors do not affect moods in any consistent and intrinsic way. Instead we learn associations and those associations can have huge effects on our emotions and moods. For example, we might learn to associate red with danger and then later on viewing a red color in any context might evoke those feelings of fear, excitement, or anxiety associated with danger. Some of these associations are learned through our society and some are learned through individual experiences. The main thing to remember is that color can have a large affect on our emotions, but it is not the same for every person and the same colors don't affect different people in the same way. There is still much about this topic that is not understood, but it is never as simple as those who like to associate a single color with a single emotion would make you think."

Now I'm trying to work out how to E-Mail the children's museum.

What Others have Done.

http://www.jgroshek.com/342/color%20and%20emotion.pdf
Page 3, there is a procedure.
Basically, this study does what I wasn't so sure about. They sat people in front of computors (in separate office cubicles) and had them look at colors.

Questions they asked-
What emotional response do you associate with this color?
How does the color make you feel ?
And, why do you feel that way?

I guess I can't say they are wrong, but I've been thinking more on a larger scale I guess. I don't think it covers enough.
I'm confused with how they categorize it.

NOTE-- This is basically what I did in seventh grade for science. It didn't work so well.

Interview?

Well, right after I emailed Mrs. Savido about my problems finding someone to interview, I stumbled upon some interesting information (ah, the power of rewording in search engines).

What I searched- Colors and emotions Pittsburgh
What I found-
http://www.pittsburghkids.org/Templates/CMP_Level3_List.aspx?CID=410&SECID=2&MENUID=256

Specifically-

"Color My World
$9.00 per person
Preschool - Grade 2
(PA Standards: 1.6, 9.1, 9.2, 9.4)
Introduce children to an appreciation of color theory by mixing and creating colors using the three primary colors - red, blue and yellow. Then explore the relationship between color and emotions."

So, now I know there is a field trip for really young kids that has something to do with this. Perhaps I could interview one of the people involved in this program?

The website has contact information (at the very, very bottom of the left side bar), but I'm not sure which one to contact. Youth Programs? Camp-Ins and Workshops? Is it right to contact the people of reservations about an interview? Should I just visit the Children's Museum? The information was under the "visit the Museum" section, in "Field trips and reservations"... If that helps...

They are on facebook apparently.

Starting Off (Again---> Action Plan!)

(I post a lot because this helps me work out my thoughts. Is that bad?)

I'm not sure if I am more behind than I thought, or if I have things more together than I thought I did. This week I am looking through my old notes, gathering a few more perhaps, finding a person to interview, and I'm going to try getting the teacher to give me minor feedback on my possible action. It would be nice if whoever I interview could give me feedback on the project before completion, but I doubt I have time for that.

ACTION PLAN (In the works)
----> I'm thinking about getting science presentation poster boards that are already different colors, or I will paint them. Either way, I plan to have at least one for every basic color (black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink)and I will have them set up on tables. Then, whoever I manage to get to participate (hopefully a decent amount of people) will sit in front of them and fill out some sort of paper.

It would be nice to look at things like reaction, heart rate and what not, but that is just me over complicating things... Maybe. (I have found that red apparently increases heart rate)

I'm also concerned with lighting. Lighting makes a big difference in color. (Maybe I should look into that too)

Possible interviews/just people to think about talking to--

• Mr. Kap (he knows this art wise I suppose)
• Psychologists (The category it most fits with)
• Decorators (Colors and emotions at home)
• Teachers (color and learning)

Now to find specific people...

Stress.

I still haven;t thought of an action plan. I have to do my action plan before next trimester. It's almost depressing how much I wish I had better resources for this...
I've done little things here and there, but nothing major. I'm a bit busy flipping out and losing my mind....

Anyways, I think I have ideas about who to interview. That Mood Jam site I wrote about before is actually from Carnegie Mellon University. I guess since it's like a psychology type thing I'll interview a professor?


Anyways, here are some of my mood jam moods I guess.... I don't know. I've been looking at the others, but there aren't many good ones on the home page right now. (Who am I to decide what's good though?)

Since there is Internet in the Hallway...

I'm going to start the list of things I need done by April here in the Hallway.

Step one- More research
Step two- interview
Step three- action plan

Since the only one I really know where I'm going with is the research part, I'll start there and hope I can put together some sort of action plan. Just in case I find someone good to interview, I will wait to go through with my action plan.

I'm really not sure what my action plan will be. Does it have to be something helpful? How am I going to do it outside of school? Do I need to hurry up and get it together so that I can try to do it in school? I think most of the attention of the grad project teachers will be on the students that currently have the class though.

Anyways... Did you know that white is actually the symbol of death instead of black? It would be cool to be able to find out how different people from different cultures feel around certain colors, but I don't think I would be able to.

http://everything2.com/title/Colors+of+emotions

This website kinda does the opposite of what I'm doing, but it might help. It is how people express emotions with colors. Perhaps not the best source, but I'm sure I can find more sources to back it up.

OH MY GOSH! I just found a website called www.moodjam.org . Basically, you make a color thingy and put some words to it to express how you feel. Not sure how relevant it is, but that is pretty cool.

One of these days, I want to sit dwn and put all of my research together somehow...