The Color Association of the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Color Association of the United States (CAUS) is an independent color trend forecasting and color consulting service to the business community.

Contents

As industry exploded after the Industrial Revolution certain industries especially in the textiles trade found the need to be able to better predict and set upcoming color and style trends. The Color Association of the United States (CAUS), then the Textile Color Card Association of the United States (TCCA), was formed to accomplish this goal. By implementing a standard, business could then plan upcoming product releases and marketing with better hope of success.

  1. Issue color forecasts in the form of cards twice a year
  2. Give directions in color trends to the market
  3. Enable different segments of the market to coordinate their products by offering the formulas for the production of each forecasted color
  4. Buy products worldwide knowing they would coordinate at the point of sale
  5. Serve as an information center for all kinds of color information.

The central purpose of setting trends and maintaining color standards is accomplished to this day in part through what is termed, "Standard Color Cards of America". These color card books are presented with silk screened paper swatches in a bound book format.

Prior to the creation of the TCCA in 1915, later to become The Color Association, hat makers took on the responsibility of color forecasting in the textile industry. Following World War I the information and supplies the milners were using from Europe, especially France, was cut off. Textile manufacturers who had grown dependent of these color decisions decided to form their own committee. Thus the TCCA was born.

Early on the TCCA set out to create what they termed "staple colors" that would facilitate the color coordination and consistency, especially among unrelated trades.

By 1930 the TCCA had built close ties to the US Government, especially in the military. The TCCA played a major role in defining the colors and their names for all manner of government related items such as uniforms, ribbons, medals, and flags. For example, the modern Flag of the United States uses specific colors selected and named by the TCCA (Old Glory Red and Old Glory Blue).

Through the 40s and 50s the TCCA membership increased, including international companies. This expansion led to the creation of industry specific trends and color books sponsored by those industries and more direct consulting to individual companies.

To this day CAUS plays a major role in the determining of color trends for industry.

Many Color Cards or palettes are created for various industries each year. For each area of focus a committee panel is formed consisting of eight to twelve people, referred in the business as the "Color Czars." Each member of the committee performs their own research on what colors they feel will, should, dominate the next few years in that industry. The committee then convenes and they debate the merits of the member selections. In the end they choose 44 colors that will make it to the palette. According to Forecaster Ken Charbonneau, the process is a lot of debate before consensus.

by Augustine Hope and Margaret Walch

A fully illustrated encycledia focused entirely on color including scientific, technical, historical, and artistic concepts.

by Faber Birren

A hypothetical and scientific look at color and the human response.

  • The Color Marketing Group (CMG)
  • The Color Box
  • Color Portfolio

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.