Time to get up and dance, folks! Crayola was looking at retiring several colors this year, as part of their centennial celebration. After selecting five that “it considered redundant or unattactive,” they they opened up a poll to see which of the five would be saved.
The winner? Burnt sienna. Huzzah!
Losers include johnny-come-latelies like “magic mint” and “blizzard blue.” I also don’t recal “mulberry” and “teal blue” being in my old box-o’-64 — which, of course, is the One True Set Of Colors Compared To Which All Others Are But Colorful Shadows.
(Oh, wait. According to this page, ulberry was introduced in 1958. “Teal blue,” though, was a 1990 replacement, as was “magic mint,” and “blizzard blue.”)
The new colors taking their place, are, alas, snazzy-but-functionally-undescriptive ones: “jazzberry jam,” “mango tango,” “inchworm,” “wild blue yonder.”
Burnt sienna, of course, is not only a fine, fine color, but is a real color, in terms of being available in art supply store, in art pencils and oil paint and the like.
The last time Crayola retired colors was in 1990, when, alas, “maize,” “lemon yellow,” “blue gray,” “raw umber,” “green blue,” “orange red,” “orange yellow,” and “violet blue” got the boot (or, euphemistically, were “enshrined in the Crayola Hall of Fame.” While “maize” and “raw umber” were particularly ugly and uninspired colors, the others were not only useful (and used!), but you knew what they were by the names.
Harumph. Kids these days.
Ugh.
Let me try this again.
Let’s hope Crayola never changes the way the crayons smell or takes away Sea Green or Periwinkle or removes the sharpener from the back of the big box.
Some things should stay exactly as they’ve always been.
Broadly speaking, I agree.