hammer

[Dan]

the pink hammer and other things like cambells soup etc is an awarness of cancer in women and i also think the companies that sell pink items like that donate a portion of the sale to the cancer society.what different does color mean anyway it does the same thing and is easier to find with ppl. who have industrial blindness.

[Puckdropper]

[e-mail] (Dan) wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Color tends to evoke an emotional response in humans. In the United States at least, pink is used to represent the female gender while light blue is used to represent the male gender. That's why the first reply on the thread about pink hammers was along the lines of "are you secure enough in your manliness". (I don't feel like looking it up.)

There are people who really don't care about color, or just go with making the whole pallete fit. Then there are others who see significance in the blue of Dorothy's dress from Wizard of Oz.

What does color mean in tools? Usually it's branding. Blue tools are made by Kobalt, yellow's DeWalt, etc. Brands inspire trust or distrust in people (how many have said "I'll never buy another X tool?") So it's the combination of branding and social norm that keep pink tools out of most men's work space. Woodworking (and engineering) is male dominated, and until that changes we'll probably see only special editions of pink (and lavender) tools.

I've been reading Don Norman's book /Emotional Design/ recently. It's inspired a lot of thought about design and looking at existing designs looking for places to improve. The length of this post might be influenced by that.

Puckdropper

[joeljcarver]

I bought a cooper's shave made by Kunz. The damn thing was red and bright green. I wouldn't have something so garish in my shop, so I removed the paint and refinished in black. The tool now has self- respect and even works better.

Joel

[Swingman]

... and some of us, who colored the sky red and the grass green until we learned to read, have no choice in the matter.