I recently did a study of color. Fascinating subject.

One thing I learned was that a vital concept in design has so thoroughly disappeared the word doesn’t even exist anymore.

“Color Depth” refers to the fact that objects can appear closer or farther because of their color. Cool colors such as blue and gray tend to look farther away. Warm colors like orange and red tend to look closer.

But the term “Color Depth” has come to refer to how many different colors your monitor or software can display (number of color bits to be technical).

A design, painting or photograph where the “other” color depth is badly handled will tend to look flat, primitive or cartoonish.

Actually, in my study, I found that the last time this was routinely well-handled was in the great Renaissance Masters, such as Raphael.

Fascinating.