On AIC 2015 Midterm Meeting, EunJin KIM made a poster presentation entitled as “Understanding popular relationships among colors through the network analysis for crowd sourced color data”. In this study, she adopted a social network analysis in order to investigate the patterns of color schemes based on relationships among individual colors. A crowd-sourced color data from Adobe Kuler® was utilized. Using quantitative metrics of network analysis, popular colors and universal colors were identified. She also classified color schemes depending on the affective characteristics of theme names, and suggested possible ways of generating harmonious schemes that satisfy a desired emotion.

Abstract

This study makes a unique attempt to adopt Social Network Analysis(SNA) in order to exploit the potential of the crowd sourced large-scale color data. We anticipate understanding the trend of color combinations and the way of generating harmonious color schemes. Basic concepts in SNA are introduced along with the method of constructing a color network from the existing color database called Adobe Kuler®. In relation to the characteristics of SNA, the implication of adopting SNA is discussed while demonstrating its benefits through findings from the network analysis of a color database. Various ways of visualization of the color data are suggested to illustrate the difference among them. In addition, quantitative metrics are calculated which identify the relative importance of individual colors and the entire structure of a network. The result reveals key players of a color network and subgroups of colors which are harmonized well to each other.