FastCompany bjuder in oss bakom kulisserna hos FiftyThree, skaparna av iPad-appen Paper. I sin senaste version av appen låter de användare blanda sina egna färger, något som visade sig vara en stor utmaning där teknik, perception och interaktion alla spelade avgörande roller.
How steep is the learning curve for making beautiful graphics? Answer that question yourself by firing up any graphic design program. Open the color picker, and choose a color midway between yellow and blue. Any kindergartner will tell you the result should be green–but no matter what machine or software you’re using, you’ll get a drab gray. Already your artwork sucks.
“There’s no such thing as a bad color, just bad color palettes,” says Andrew Allen, co-founder and designer at FiftyThree, the New York developers who built Paper for iPad. “These traditional color pickers like those in Photoshop or Illustrator don’t offer you any help,” says Allen. “They say, here are 16 million options—you choose.”