Who Knew? A New Blue.

For most of human history, producing blue pigment was pretty much the Holy Grail for artists. It was a quest that was, more often than not, unsuccessful. From the beginning of time, a source of blue was either impossible to find or really, really expensive. So blue, when it was used at all, was used pretty sparingly for the first, you know, like, 75,000 years of human artistry. That is until the early 1700s when the first synthetic pigment was discovered. To the thanks of artists everywhere, that new pigment was a blue. Drum roll, please. After that point, blue was readily available (and, a bit sadly, not nearly as special as it used to be).

The quest for new synthetic pigments (and new blues) continues to this day. Just recently, California scientists announced the creation of what they are calling Quantum Blue. As this article from Huffington Post describes, the newest member of the blue family is said to “‘the blue of the future,’ a pigment that dazzles in its sheer purity and depth, emitting a radiance more often associated with neon lights than the contents of a tube of paint.” Wow. That sounds like a pretty cool blue. I think it might make all those other blues out there a bit jealous.

I like blue. It is a nice color. But for the modern graphic artist who still works in print design, printing a true orange or purple is our Holy Grail. Convert a RGB image with bright oranges or rich purples to CMYK and watch it go flat. The day that CMYK (or whatever) can produce a purple that is fit for a king or a bright, sunny orange will be a great day. But until then, at least, we are pretty good on the blue front. And that is a good thing.