Are new colours being created everyday?

Question

With regards to (house) paint and watercolours, are new colours being created everyday?

I know most (/all?) house paint companies have colour indices/indexes, but are they adding more colours to it? And is there a limit as to how many colours can be.... hm... created?

Who regulates the names of colours, anyway? Are there any international bodies, or are they subject to the companies that created them?

Answer 1

I don't know about house paint but I'd say yes when it comes to automotive. Part of my job is mixing car paint and if you think you understand how to mix for painting on canvas you have a lot to learn. We mix it old school by a scale and printed formula.

You never really realize what goes into a color until you start doing this. And the names do vary from company to company to an extent.

Color names are created by the company and given names that sound pleasing. I'll give you an example. Take midnight blue, most people know what it is. I've seen the same mix formula be labled as midnight blue metallic and midnight blue pearl. Same formula, two different car manufactures. both have some metallic and some pearl in it but both have different names.

Most times you can create a new color just by changing the formula a bit. A couple of weeks ago a guy comes in to get paint for a 57 chevy he's painting and he picks a copper/ orange color. I'm in the middle of pouring the metalic, (Fine metalic) stopped and asked him if he wanted it to pop more. I finished the mix off with coarse metalic and it picks up the light even better. Same color but a different look.

The company we deal with is Sherwin Williams. The same priciples will apply to house paint if you know what to look at. You wouldn't paint your house in candy flake but anything they have can be tweaked to accomodate your needs. Most major companies can do that as well. I believe it's lowes or home depot that has a scanner that will read just about anything you put under it and create a formula for it. Custom vibrant green house paint? That'll get you tossed out of the heighborhood!

I know it seems a bit off topic using a car reference in this but you'll never see more color choices than in automotive finishes. Between custom formulas, tweaked stock formulas, custom paint companies, variences of the same color, it's just endless.

When a car company has over seven shades of red in one production year someone's busy coming up with the stuff!

Answer 2

paint company's work hard to get new colors all of the time unfortunately some are just old one with new names each company has a staff that names the colors and lots of the names follow at trend if you watch them closely lipstick and nail polish also help set those trends with wild names and color descriptions as far a regulations for color names there are none it is a free for all try it sometime mix some shades up and give them names and see what your friends think

Answer 3

Just different shades