Here in the creative world, we deal with color on a daily basis. Color is extremely subjective when it comes to marketing and is usually the cause of long debates!
But what about color in a personal sense? A friend who works in research science once asked me, “What color is the number 8?” to which I quickly answered, “Orange, of course!” as though this was common knowledge. Now, this might sound ludicrous to you, but I have colors for numbers. And letters. And sounds. I have a disorder called “synesthesia.” It simply means that wires in my brain that control my senses cross over each other. While my case is mild, there are people who suffer from very distracting levels of synesthesia that interfere with their cognitive ability to take in information. In some cases, it has been found to be linked to savant forms of autism or photographic memory-which I have.
It is not a commonly understood disorder, but we’re learning more all the time. More information can be found about the genetic research that is being investigated here:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/09/synesthesia.genes/index.html
My brother is a genius-level musician who does not have colors for numbers or letters, but has them for sounds, which may speak to the genetic connection and although they say there is no proof that synesthetic people tend toward creative fields, we certainly do in my family! Neither of my parents seem to have it, and they look at us like we’re odd because we see colors for things, but they do find is fascinating.
Other links with info are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia
http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/syne.html
Disorder or benefit, I’m not quite sure, but it made for some fun office conversations here at s&j when I ask people if they have colors for their letters, numbers or sounds!
So, do you have colors?
