The explainer of colours

Axel Buether, Germany's leading colour expert, on the importance of light and colour in our world

Can you spend your life researching colours? "I have the best job in the world," answers Axel Buether, Professor of Media Design and Design Technology at the University of Wuppertal, explaining how he became Germany's leading colour researcher. "I actually started by training as a stonemason and stone sculptor before I studied architecture," the scientist begins. He worked as a restorer in cathedrals, which made a lasting impression on him. "When the light falls through a Gothic window like this, you realise that this church cannot be explained by the stones I use, but rather consists of atmospheres of colour and light that then illuminate the entire interior." The space creates a transcendent atmosphere during services and connects believers with their God. This is the only way to explain the height of such a sacred building, which does not end after two metres thirty and two metres sixty, as in modern times. His fascination with these spaces then led him to study architecture, where he soon realised with disillusionment that it was more about functionality and materiality than about the atmospheres created by a building. Buether began researching light and colour and says: "I needed a theory of visual perception because I was interested in this visual perception through light and colour. I then came to really look at all the theories about light and colour in architecture. And there are a lot of them."

A walk with blind people becomes the initial spark

The idea of finding out how spaces affect people and what colours can reinforce came to Buether during a chance walk with two blind people, whom he asked how they perceived the space and the city in which they lived. "They then explained their world to me, which has no colours and no light, consists of smells, sounds and haptics, and which they virtually perceive with their canes. I then put my entire doctorate to one side and started from scratch, focusing on what these blind people can't feel: the city of light and colour."
The reality of our lives is designed in such a way that we interweave and network our world with light and colour. "The forms, the image of our reality that we consider to be real, but which does not exist at all for blind people and therefore cannot be real, is a kind of visual world built from our sensory perception, which feels real to us, but is actually a simulation. And if I design in such a simulated world, I can of course also do things for people that may not even exist in the other worlds. That was an exciting theory of visual perception and that's why I did my doctorate in the border area between perceptual psychology and spatial theory. That's where my scientific career began."

What does a colour researcher do?

Buether delves into history and explains how colours, once dismissed as beautiful appearances, have increasingly found their way into science and art. For a long time, colours belonged to the scientific field of physics. Goethe experimented with spectra in the first part of his Theory of Colours and also named physics as the leading science, which it vehemently rejected. Only in the second part of the book did he devote himself to the sensual and moral effect of colours, the psychology of colours. "He began to describe the perception of colours, i.e. the use of colours in art, in environmental design and then saw that there are meanings in cultures that also change. And that's what a colour researcher does." He deals with the empirical foundations and the question of where colour perception actually comes from, because colours are not simply there. In contrast to Goethe, the scientist, who was born 200 years later, deals with biology and asks: "Why do we perceive colours? How did colour perception develop? Why are there so many colours in the world? Why are there 300 thousand flowering plants with different colours and fruits? Why is the whole of nature made up of colours?" Buether's book The mysterious power of colours explores these questions in depth, because colours are part of life, evolution and diversity. "This is an important field of activity for me, as the founder of evidence-based colour psychology, to say that there is evidence in biology. There are thousands of experiments, as I have compiled in my book, on why animals perceive colours and how they actually base their behaviour on colour." On this basis, he says, we now have to talk about colours in almost all disciplines, i.e. in design, communication, architecture, culture and art. "We need evidence, no longer the gut feeling of the colour creator, but we need someone in the sciences who can explain colours. And I am currently the person who explains the effects of colours on human experience and behaviour on an empirical basis throughout the German-speaking world and often beyond.

A colourful environment

Colours play an important role in our lives and also determine our mood. In the dark months, when it's dreary, grey and wet outside, everyone looks forward to spring with all its bright, blooming colours. And then you read that the Pantone colour of the year 2025 is mocha mousse, or brown. "Brown tones, muted natural colours that are very popular in fashion today, have something to do with sustainability. Our time, if you look at it later, focussed on sustainability and environmental protection. People would say that colours that look healthy were a big issue. I get one or two calls a day from journalists who want exactly these kinds of questions explained, i.e. real-life questions that concern us all. What influence do colours have on our mind, on our mood? And then I'm the explainer again. You then realise that the colours of sunlight - not just the intensity of the light, but also the colour temperature, for example - have an influence on our hormone balance, on our autonomic nervous system and on our motivation. And then you can well imagine that if it doesn't get really bright, if the sky is grey, then the motivation curve also drops, you don't really get out of bed, you are tired and exhausted and certain happiness hormones, such as dopamine, are not produced sufficiently. It is then important to give people back this energy with certain lighting and also with a colourful environment. And that works!"

You then have to create optimal environments that are good for health, people then feel healthier, more motivated and more valued. "In every appropriate room, you can say that if we try to recognise people's nature and look at how we can translate that - I can't make a flower meadow in the interior, I have to translate that - into environments, it starts with artificial light or access to daylight and then goes on to the design of all surfaces in the room: the floor, walls, ceiling, but also the entire interior. And then you ask, where do I like to sleep or have breakfast? Where do I rest? Where am I very active? And suddenly you realise that there are certain places in a landscape like this where we prefer to do things, do them better. When I translate this atmosphere into interior spaces, I realise that a bathroom looks different to a living room, bedroom or workspace, or even a classroom at school. I can create atmospheres that promote this for every situation. And if I do it right, I actually have healthier, more motivated, more cheerful and more willing to work people than before."

Colours are the largest communication system on earth

"If you were to take away colours in nature," explains Buether, "for example the colours of flowers, then the insects would immediately lose their orientation, because they orientate themselves at a distance by the colours of the flowers and use them to pollinate the flowers again. The whole system would immediately collapse. Coral reefs work in the same way, they are not just brightly coloured, but all the colours there have a biological function. And if you examine them closely, you realise why colours are more important than smells or sounds, because through evolution, colours have developed an incredible complexity so that communication in species-rich environments works perfectly even over long distances." Colour communication systems have also proven their worth in human environments. The expert explains: "A good example is a large railway station or an airport, where you can easily navigate streams of people past each other and through each other using colour guidance systems. You couldn't explain it in words, and even if you wrote it down, it would take too long to read it properly. But if I know that yellow is my taxi rank, then I simply follow this colour regardless of the irritating crowds and the usually unmanageable complexity of the space." And it works the same way in other cultures too. Textile colours in indigenous cultures explain without words which village a person comes from and which family they belong to. Japanese kimonos indicate marital status, the colours of our world function like an open book in which you can read a lot of important and trivial information.

Colour codes are changing

In his new book, Buether explores the old colour codes that are slowly disappearing, with new codes taking their place. "If you look at the picture of Venice, you can immediately see who lived in which house, what professions people had and in which social contexts they were at home." Old city centres are a reader. Today's coding, on the other hand, is aimed at the design of our everyday objects. "You can see exactly who uses which objects, which socio-cultural milieu the person comes from, whether they are old or young, rich or poor, etc. There is very complex coding in design, every everyday object is practically coded for a target group and in visual communication we notice that I can communicate products in colour via advertising, but also certain websites and blogs, which all have their own target groups. In product design, it is said that the sale of similar products is 70 percent dependent on the colour design." Expensive products become more colour-neutral, as can be seen with cars, for example. With cheaper products, on the other hand, the fashion colour also plays a role, which then changes again. "Every decade has a style, but also its own colour coding, by which you can assign films and interiors to the 20s, 50s or 70s, for example; you perceive the colour-coded atmosphere of the film space and immediately know which era you are in."

The manipulative use of colours in the food industry

Axel Buether says: "Up to 70 percent of our brain capacity is occupied with the recognition and decoding of colours, whereby it is not primarily about colours, but the content communicated through them. This is comparable to spoken language, where the medium actually has just as much influence on the verbalised content." The famous philosopher Marshal McLuhan once aptly said: "The medium is the message." This realisation is therefore often used manipulatively in politics and business. This works, for example, with the image of delicious food and drinks by manipulating the packaging colours, because 90 percent of our goods are packaged. "I pick out my pizza, which looks like it's healthy and delicious. But if I looked at it without the colouring and packaging, I wouldn't eat it, because exactly what colours do, i.e. whet my appetite, lower my blood sugar level so that I get hungry, prepare my enzymes in the gastrointestinal tract for food intake, only happens if it looks healthy to me." By the time the customer has taken the product off the shelf, they have basically already bought it. People decide visually whether the milk or meat is fresh or the apple is tasty, which is why our products look so flawless in the shop. "The perfect appearance makes us reach for it. And that's where it's my job again to explain the intention and effect of these manipulations."

What do colours say about character?

In his first book, Buether wanted to educate people and make scientific findings usable for civil society. This worked to some extent, but it was still very theoretical. "I received a lot of messages from people and institutions who wanted practical help with product or interior design or with marketing and public relations. A large part of consumerism also works because people buy fashion colours that will be out of fashion again next year, but also constantly buy things that they don't actually need and don't suit them or aren't sustainable." Everyone knows the classic sentence when someone stands in front of their wardrobe and says: I have nothing to wear because most of the colours don't suit their personality and everyday situations. The scientist therefore works with an extended colour spectrum of 2000 colours in his new book. "And then I asked myself, how can you start from the individual person? What describes what colours an individual person needs? That has a lot to do with the person themselves, with their character, their individuality." Buether is now defining the colour preferences of different people and seeing whether he can use the colours to measure the personality structure of the person. In tests, he had the wardrobes of one hundred test subjects cleared out and arranged into colour circles in which the shape and label were not recognisable; his test subjects were able to determine the main personality traits based on the person's colour preferences alone. "I can tell how open or withdrawn, how extraverted or introverted a person is. Are they conscientious or spontaneous?" Although everyone makes categorisations and assessments every time they meet someone or visit a room, they don't know why they do so. "If you know more about this, you can also choose colours for your home, your clothes and your everyday objects that suit you better or fulfil a certain communicative purpose on important occasions such as job interviews or public appearances. I try to answer all these practical questions through evidence-based research and a personality test, which will be included in the book and which will also lead to the person's colour preferences."

Axel Buether will be speaking about his book Die geheimnisvolle Welt der Farben (The Mysterious World of Colours) on 19 May at 7 p.m. in Remscheid's Klosterkirche as part of the Bergische Universität lecture series.

Uwe Blass

Axel Buether is a media scientist, perceptual psychologist and architect with a research focus on colour, light and space. He is Professor of Didactics of Visual Communication at the University of Wuppertal.