Is the World Losing Its Color?

(…and why one hotel manager accidentally became my muse)

My ‘ohana and I were recently out doing some cold calls and dropping off business cards for Hawaiʻi Island Photography. You know—real grassroots, boots-on-the-ground outreach. Yesterday, Nani got a call from a man (name withheld to protect the uninspired) from a hotel that is equally unremarkable. He did not call to inquire about our Hawaiʻi photography services.

No. He called… to complain.

About our business cards.

Apparently, he “almost threw it away” because it didn’t look “professional.” According to him, a professional business card should be “clean and elegant”—meaning black and white only. No color. No joy. No vibrancy. Just the fashion sense of a filing cabinet.

She apologized for the offense, ended the call politely, and then—because the universe has a sense of humor—she smiled.

First, he didn’t throw it away. He called us. Which means the card worked exactly as designed.

Second, nothing makes her morning like gently shutting down a pompous speech with a calm “thank you for your feedback.”

My son and I found it equally as humorous. But his comment stuck with me—not because I was offended, but because it’s wild how many people don’t realize something important:

They didn’t choose their blandness. It was taught to them.

And honestly… it makes me a little sad to see how creativity has been colored over, muted, and standardized by a world that keeps trying to replace vibrancy with grayscale “professionalism.”

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Why Everything Looks Gray Now (and Why Hawaiʻi Still Deserves Color)

If you search “Is the world losing its color?” you’ll find plenty of explanations from design, psychology, and environmental studies:

Design & Materials

• Minimalism made everything grayscale in the name of “clean” aesthetics.

• Plastics and metals replaced colorful natural materials like wood, kapa, and woven fibers.

• Even in Big Island photography, we see trends toward neutral color palettes to fit global design standards.

Environmental Changes

• Climate change is literally dulling lakes, coastlines, reefs, and skies.

• Pollution makes colors appear hazier and less vibrant.

Globalization

• Uniform global products replaced local cultural textiles and handmade color traditions.

• Physical spaces got muted while vibrancy shifted to digital screens.

Psychology

• Modern life is visual chaos, so people seek “calm” in muted colors.

These are symptoms.

Let’s talk about the cause—the part we pretend not to see.

"The Industrial Dream" - Factories full of corporate, compliant "Professionals".

The Beige Machine: Conformity, Capitalism & Creativity Deficit Disorder™

Once upon a time, industrialists wanted factories full of predictable, standardized workers. Creativity was… inconvenient. So schools became training grounds for compliance: sit, listen, memorize, repeat. They mass produced perfect little factory workers, not artists, not critical thinkers, and definitely not people confident enough to use teal on a business card.

I’m not here to villainize anyone (though some mustache-twirling may be implied), but it’s fair to say “Professional” quietly became code for:

• Bland

• Standardized

• Colorless

• Forgettable

The side effect?

Huge parts of our cultural identity faded—not just in Hawaiʻi, but globally.

Mass-produced textiles replaced handmade ones. Petroleum-based fabrics replaced natural fibers. What once required skill, creativity, and cultural knowledge now rolls off a machine in seconds.

We didn’t lose our color.

It was standardized out of us.

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Kapa: A Brilliant Reminder of What Real Color Looks Like

Before industrialism and the “fast fashion” era, Hawaiians created kapa—one of the most vibrant and meaningful textiles in the world. It remains a cornerstone of Hawaiian culture photography, indigenous storytelling, and local artistry.

Material

• Made from the inner bark of the wauke (paper mulberry) tree

• Stripped, soaked, and hand-beaten into sheets

Colors (All Natural)

• Black: kukui soot

• Brown / red-brown: kukui sap

• Yellow: ʻōlena (turmeric)

• Red: noni root

• Green: ukiʻuki berries

• Earth tones & jewel tones: native ʻalaeʻa clay

• Silvery green: maʻo blossoms

• Fixatives: seawater, coconut water, burned coral lime

This is the kind of color that holds story, identity, and aloha.

This is the kind of artistry that Hawaiʻi Island photographers love to capture because it’s rooted in the ʻāina itself.

Compare that to polyester—which, if we’re being honest, looks like it’s been slowly dying inside since 1973.

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So… Is the World Losing Its Color?

Physically? Sometimes.

Culturally? Only if we let it.

Artistically? Not on my watch.

If we want to preserve humanity, culture, and the creative spirit of Hawaiʻi, we have to resist the beige wave.

We do that by:

• Supporting local artisans

• Valuing handmade and cultural textiles

• Appreciating indigenous art forms like kapa

• Encouraging creativity in our keiki

• Choosing color even when “clean and elegant” insists otherwise

• And yes—printing a business card that actually has some life in it

Because if color offends your worldview…

that’s not a design issue.

That’s a perspective issue.

And personally?

I think the world deserves to look more like kapa…

and a lot less like a filing cabinet.

An Industrialist's Nightmare - A colourful booth with colourful products.