THE WAR ON COLOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1062, 28 August 1930, Page 10

THE WAR ON COLOUR

THE Auckland City Council’s proposal to restrict the range of * colours which may be employed in painted advertising signs is merely another example of the passion for legislative enterprise without regard to the possible consequences. As the arbiter of the City’s colour scheme the engineer, Air. Tyler, whose training probably included no instruction whatever in the use of colours for display purposes, has tentatively proposed a limited set of colours which will seriously restrict the choices open to the business firms concerned. Mr. Tyler blissfully overlooks the fact that the ratepayers who provide his salary have invested thousands of pounds in signs which will contravene the new bylaws, and which, though associated with particular businesses for years, will ultimately have to be altered to conform to the tastes of the present City Engineer. There is some case for a system of control over the more garish signs, but for the most part these could be covered by some kind of advisory censorship. Mr. Tyler himself has given an instance of the success of an appeal to a, property owner concerned. If business men or property, owners who use blazing colour schemes are politely notified that the public considers them so offensive or silly as to make them laughed at, they will lose no time in painting them out. But in this case it is Mr. Tyler and the City Council who will be laughed at. The proposed range of colours is so restricted, and the colours so subdued, that it would place hundreds of signs in the City outside the law. There is not much point in having a big sign erected to draw attention to a business if only colours which allow no scope for originality can be used, and the business of established signwriting firms will suffer accordingly. If the City Council is to he consistent, it will next endeavour to restrict the tints which may be used in the posters applied to the many hoardings throughout the City, and after that it will perhaps try to prevent the use of bright colours on trade motor vehicles. Mr. Tyler may deem some of the colours used by the big oil companies on their tank wagons as undesirable as the hues which "the same firms apply to their world-wide systems of signboards. Having attended to that little matter, he may feel persuaded to tackle the colour-schemes of private motor-cars, some of which are admittedly a trifle gaudy. If the principle of a rigid censorship over colour is approved, the thing may never end, and the ultimate development will he a sombre and uninteresting city, governed by the arbitrary regulations of stupid officialdom rather than by the good taste of its citizens.