Colour blindness and LEGO

Firstly, please excuse the lack of a nice LEGO model. This post is really for the approximately 6% of our readers who are colour blind (CVD to be technical) so if you’re not one of them, you can stop reading. If you are please indulge my curiosity and read on.

Both Peter Morris and I are from that lucky 7% of the male population with CVD. This causes both of us some consternation when dealing with LEGO. I’m curious to see what problems others with CVD have and what they do to deal with it.

So if you do have problems with CVD please comment on this flickr post. If you’re not a flickr member please comment here. Just share the hassles and solutions you’ve found. I’m certainly hoping to learn something from it all.

7 comments on “Colour blindness and LEGO

  1. mijasper

    Quoting ‘gambort’ and ‘bldesign’ on flickr.com:

    „Bastard colours for me. This is particularly bad if I’m in poorish light:
    dark grey/bley and green
    dark blue/black
    reddish brown/dark red
    light aqua (from Cars)/white (my newest!)
    trans-neon/trans-yellow
    PS. And screw you LEGO for your shitty instructions. Some of the colours are undecipherable to me.“

    „Same color problems. In better light it’s much easier to see the difference. The only number that pops immediately for me is 25. Some of the others I can squint and guess.“

    EXACTLY the same (color problems) here … and it’s occasionally really annoying!

  2. Sebeus

    I don’t have problems seperating different colored lego bricks but I do get confused by the instruction booklets in which I often mistake black and dark grey and also white and light grey

  3. Apfly

    I don’t have the problems.
    @Sebeus:I sometimes get confused between black and dk blueish grey in the instructions too.

  4. frog101

    I’m actually very surprised that Lego dropped the ball with this one – so well spotted.

    However, I do wonder if this is because we (as consumers) have insisted on Lego moving from the primary colours to a more complex palate in order to satisfy our need for more realistic model sets?

  5. Dave

    I have the same issues as the guys above me. When building Cafe Corner I had to get my wife to help me separate the dark red and brown elements, since I simply cannot tell them apart.

  6. legovaughan

    Lilewise, I too find the black/drk bley, red/drk brown and white/lt grey are problematic in the instruction booklets.

    I just wish LEGO would place a small numbered note – eg. ——(3) on a specific coloured part the first time it appears in each booklet. Since every print is slightly different and the colours may be slightly off, this would help identify colours more accurately.

  7. powermilk

    ^a number system would work. I’ve also thought outlining black parts in white(or some other color) to distinguish it.

    in regards to color blindness. This has been a constant problem, until…I had children. Now, they are my eyes. The best solution I have found is to work in really good lighting (including natural). When I build in the evening, with artificial light only, color differences are all but impossible to figure out.

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