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facts & arguments

Crayola's decision to weed out Dandelion from its collection will limit us profoundly, Rose Zgodzinski writes

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This year, on National Crayon Day in the United States, Crayola Inc. announced that the crayon named Dandelion would be retiring.

If Crayola actually follows through on this announcement and weeds Dandelion out of the box, that would leave the standard 24-crayon package with just one yellow-coloured crayon – Amirillo. What is Amarillo you ask? It is Spanish for yellow. Now that seems like a pretty straightforward, well-appointed name for a yellow, but I am suspicious that this generic handle may be foreshadowing that Amirillo could become the only yellow.

Though it may seem like a dream job, I imagine that naming colours must be extremely hard work and somewhat of a thankless job given all the yellow Crayola names that have fallen by the wayside in the past decade alone; Super Happy, Sunshine Sprite, Parmesan, Lemon Glacier, Gold Bunny Gold and Enchanted Forest (a yellow-green colour). I feel for the crayon-naming team, which must have spent considerable grey matter thinking of all these names for yellow.

I am clearly blue-leaning in the way I perceive the world; by this I do not mean my overall mood or where I would reside on the American political map. It is the part of the spectrum where I feel relief and support all at the same time. Open my closet and the vibrating turquoise-to-indigo clothing spectrum reveals everything that needs to be said about my colour comfort zone. Yet, even though I live in the blue world almost exclusively, I think that really eliminating a yellow, any yellow, from the spectrum is a big mistake, although this is unlikely to happen given Crayola's history.

I have done a bit of research and although my understanding of Crayola's marketing strategy may be limited, I have discovered what can only be described as some colour-naming hanky-panky. In 1962, Crayola changed the colour name Flesh to Peach, but the actual apricot-coloured crayon, now called Apricot, never left the box. It seems that many colour names have followed a similar path. They have become officially "retired" only to remain in service under a different moniker. Is this not simply a rose by another name? Couldn't this type of shenanigan even be perceived as an alt-fact?

The situation becomes even murkier when you consider the latest trend in colour-naming: colour-naming contests. I wonder if participants will be confused if they come to understand that they haven't named a new crayon, just an old colour? Do these contests really reinvigorate consumers or are they merely hinting at the unthinkable – that the crayon market might be fading. If colour-naming contests are really engaging consumers, then wouldn't it make more sense for Crayola to keep its tinkering to the safe blue zone – the most popular shades of the crayon spectrum. I am guessing that even though yellow is sunny and optimistic and all aglow (all possible crayon names, by the way), that the yellow hues are Crayola's least embraced palette.

My own experience of yellow is limited. As a graphic designer, I know that black on yellow is the most legible colour combination for print. I know that yellow's high visibility will liberate type out of a difficult background. I know that the only reason I bought the most expensive dress I ever bought was because it was eye-popping, fresh-as-a-summer-day, irresistibly honeyed yellow! And, while it looked fantastic in a small boutique window in the town of Bordeaux, in southwestern France, it seemed to drain all the colour out of my body, once I brought it back into the cold light of Canada. I never wore that dress – because yellow can be a hard colour to wear.

And that leads me to think about yellow crayons beside green crayons beside orange crayons or yellow beside any other possible colours, because maybe yellow is just a little too bright, too boisterous, too happy beside anything else. Is that the real reason why yellow is being targeted or did Crayola decide to boot Dandelion, that insidiously happy-looking weed, because it is the closest colour in its roster to Donald Trump's hair? Perhaps the crayon-marketing brain-trust decided that striking pre-emptively might avert a possible U.S. government backlash. Could the removal of all yellow crayons be looming?

After the Dandelion retirement announcement, rumours began to fly about a real crayon replacement, not just a name change. Many began speculating that Dandelion would be replaced by a blue-coloured crayon. I hope that this will not be the case. Replacing yellow with blue – that feels like a chump's game, which could badly backfire. And though it may seem inconsequential, removing one small yellow crayon limits us profoundly.

Yellow is basic. Primary, in fact. Cutting it out of the mix, simply skews the entire palette. A palette without yellow, or a limited amount of yellow, is a partial palette that provides a partial picture. Don't we need to see the world for what it really is right now?

Since its inception, crayons have been opening the door to the world of possibilities – "Everything Imaginable" – as Crayola likes to say. Why should we choose to see the world through a blinkered spectrum? It makes a lot more sense to me to include all the colours rather than limiting them.

Keep the damned Dandelion crayon, name and all. Let it stay in the box, just the way it is!

Rose Zgodzinski lives in Toronto.