The inner nerd in me craves order, and there are all kinds of color systems out there that somehow put color into an analytical order. Let’s dive in and find out what all those color geeks have been up to!

Although I’ve always had the fascination with color, coming from the creative / left side of the brain, I also work heavily out of the right side. I always excelled at math, and look at things in a very analytical and organized way. Needless to say, it’s exciting to me that much color study and color theory has come from the minds of mathematicians and scientists.

The study of color dates back to the early days in Greece with Aristotle. It’s hard for me to think about a time when what a person saw – color and light – wasn’t entirely understood. Color has been used all throughout history in many symbolic ways, but Aristotle was one of the first to put into writing a study about what makes light “light”, and what makes color “color”.

For me, studying what these scientists, artists, and educators were trying to decipher is intriguing. Looking at all the different ways that they broke down color into systems, into such different graphic representations of their view of color – does make me excited. Seeing all these different forms and shapes of color, then seems to make me look at color in different ways also.

Here are just a few notable color theorists over the years.