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Sometimes, however, you don’t want to difference subtlety but instead hit it with a sledgehammer. Then we take a colour like pink. If Englisch speakers use the colour pink, they automatically associate it with the flower pink, also called carnation. In Germany, for instance, this is not the case because hardly anyone knows that pink is a name for a flower. For Germans, pink is as pink as yellow is yellow or red is red. However, I dare say that even in the UK or the USA, parts of the population are probably unclear what a carnation looks like. Pink has come to have a similarly monotonous meaning for many Anglo-Saxons, as it does for Germans, which refers to a highly saturated, aggressive rose that lacks any subtlety of the fine old rose as its original colour.
Pink is a colour that uncompromisingly hits the anima of people and has carved itself into everyday visual life as a vulgar ambassador of femininity. Pink is unmistakably bad taste and is often understood as a provocation in more colour-sensitive circles. However, pink has long played a substantial role in gender communication in more progressive parts of society as an expression of a queer lifestyle. The path of the colour pink from the discreet carnation rose to a shrill voice in maximum possible saturation is a long way and possibly not yet over. Pink, by the way, has a slight blue tinge to it and is therefore on the cool side of the colours.
Pink is indisputably one of the signal colours, but unlike red or orange, it tells social stories. In terms of sheer power, it could be placed in antagonism to anthracite, which communicates restraint, seriousness, security but also lack of originality. In terms of lack of originality, however, pink and anthracite could well shake hands. Even in gloss, both colours have a shared attitude because both colours are unimaginable in flat. It must be said, however, that anthracite only raises from grey to anthracite when it gains luminosity through shine, while pink gains enough luminosity through saturation and the right amount of white alone.
