Lego Colours

Thanks to my mother and grandfather, I am colourblind. After discovering (c. 2001) that I knew all of the PhD students and postdocs in the colour vision team at Cambridge, I allowed them to experiment on me and was duly diagnosed as extreme deuteranomalous vision defective.  Putting aside the science, this means I have very limited ability to distinguish blue from purple, as well as struggling with red/brown and green/brown (oddly, I'm almost always fine with red/green).  

Why am I writing about this in a Lego blog?  The answer should be obvious in that there are times when I really struggle to identify what colour my bricks are.  Particular challenges are:

• Dark red vs. reddish brown (this is my all-time worst and I struggle with them every time)
• Dark green vs. dark brown (especially cheese slopes)
• Transparent yellow vs transparent bright green (this is another random weakness which totally foxed Petroc when he tested me 20 years ago)
  
• Dark green vs. black (yes, really - I regularly find DG pieces in my bags of black Lego)

This is quite apart from the colours that I suspect lots of people struggle with (old brown vs reddish brown; medium blue vs Maersk blue).  

To help me out, I've therefore compiled my own reference chart.  I use it surprisingly often to reference-check bricks.  My wife is also getting familiar with it when my eyes fail me!

 

As a guide:

• "L" - Light
• "M" - Medium
  
• "D" - Dark
• "B" - Bright
  
• "N" - Neon
  
• "V" - Very
• "T" - Transparent
• "G" - Glitter
• "S" - Speckle 
• "P" - Pearl

There are a few colours missing still:

• Chrome Black (only ever released in the Chrome Darth Vader which I've yet to buy)
• The new Satin colours (I've only got Satin White so far)
• Colours that only ever appears in Clikits sets (I have some of these but don't consider them to be proper Lego)
• A couple of colours that only appeared in Duplo (dark salmon, dark yellow)
  
• Light pink which only seems to come in non-brick items
  
• Modulex colours. 

I'm also unconvinced about my bricks for light lime (I think it's medium lime) and pink (I think it's dark pink again). Will try again on those two.

Here's a photo taken with my proper camera, rather than my iphone.  Not entirely sure a £250 camera does a better job with the colours!  Though the resolution is certainly better so you stand a better chance of reading my terrible writing.