In this categorisation, White Pink is inspired by the colour of white skin. White skin is certainly not white. It has many shades and can more precisely be described as rosy, pink, peach, or salmon. However, with the ideological and propagandistic influence of the US dream machine Disney, the colour White Pink is modelled after Disney princesses such as Snow White and Cinderella. They are symbols of absolute beauty and innocence: what every girl adores and desires.

Sakura – the cherry blossom. Every year, people, mainly in Japan, spend considerable time contemplating the “clouds” of pink blossoming trees and the petals that flutter down after only a few days. The Cherry Blossom Festival has been celebrated in Japan for over a thousand years. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904/1905), the fallen petals symbolised the first time that soldiers sacrificed their lives for the Emperor. In 1912, the Japanese Emperor gave 5,000 cherry blossom trees to the United States as a gift, a symbol of friendship between Japan and the United States. The Cherry Blossom Festival is celebrated every year in Washington, D.C.

In this process and the accompanying celebrations, not only beauty and eternity but also pain and death play essential roles. The transience of the blooming trees increases their aesthetic aura, and both provokes and highlights the controversial sentiments of pink.

This pink tone is based on the research of Alexander Schauss, a socio-biologist at the Naval Correctional Facility in Seattle, and Daniela Späht, a colour designer from Switzerland. In the late 1970s, Schauss created the Baker-Miller Pink by mixing one gallon of pure white indoor latex paint with one pint of red trim semi-gloss outdoor paint. Schauss argued that this specific pink hue has a tranquilising and calming effect on the human psyche. By painting the prison cells in this colour, violent or aggressive prisoners were calmed. Later studies, however, have shown conflicting results on the effect of the colour. While an initial calming effect was noticeable in some prisoners – and usually this depended on the background of the particular prisoner – more often than not, after fifteen minutes of exposure to the colour, the opposite effect took place. Thirty years later, Daniela Späht remodelled the Baker-Miller Pink and named it Cool Down Pink. This pink shade was then implemented in Swiss prisons, schools, psychiatric hospitals, and institutions for mentally handicapped people in 2007. According to Späht’s research, Cool Down Pink reduces blood pressure after only one to five minutes of entering a room painted in this hue.
The name Cell Pink refers not only to the prison cell. This shade of pink also refers to the human body, its apertures and inner organs. Here, pink is the colour of life, sensuality, and sexuality. No matter what skin colour, size, ethnic background, or sex, the colour of intestines is always pink. It is a component of equality and unification.

Refined Light Pink has a higher white ratio than the Refined Bright Pink tone; it is associated with perfection and purity. Refined Light/Bright Pink shades are often used for products such as candy, sugar, diet or beauty items, and water. They are also used for many girls’ toys, such as by Mattel (the maker of Barbie) and also by Lego.

Refined Pink shades are very intense; they stir up our emotions and attract our attention. I would even suggest that everyone could be attracted to this colour if social and cultural norms, models, and expectation could be ignored. These products use cross-generational and cross-cultural attraction to stimulate our senses. Refined Pink looks as if it would smell of flowers and taste sweet.

Refined Bright Pink is more highly saturated than the Refined Light Pink tone, suggesting passion and joy. Refined Bright Pink shades are often used for products such as candy, sugar, diet or beauty items, and water. They are also used for many girls’ toys, such as by Mattel (the maker of Barbie) and also by Lego.

Refined Pink shades are very intense; they stir up our emotions and attract our attention. I would even suggest that everyone could be attracted to this colour if social and cultural norms, models, and expectation could be ignored. These products use cross-generational and cross-cultural attraction to stimulate our senses. Refined Pink looks as if it would smell of flowers and taste sweet.

When it comes to making the future tangible, architects and industrial designers try to make their designs and proposals look bright and shiny. Light, positive energy penetrates designs. Form, shape, and colour are highlighted. In the process of realisation of often utopian and idealistic design, many of the expressive and highly emotional elements of a concept fall victim to the restrictions of costs, and mass suitability and production. Concept Pink is an homage to the unfulfilled dreams of a perfect future.

This pink tone is used by activists and political groups such as Code Pink, Pink Cross, and Pink Bloque. They utilise the strong impact of the colour, but also take advantage of its historical dimension and narrative component. It symbolises strength in most perceived weak elements. A pink triangle was used by the Nazis to identify male homosexual prisoners. Therefore, the colour received a negative homosexual connotation among many men. For a boy or man to wear pink is considered “gay” and thus, in many societies, unacceptable. Yet paradoxically within this controversial narrative pink has become an international symbol of gay pride.

The Rococo period, which originated in early eighteenth century in Paris, was characterised by pastel colours, delicately curving forms, dainty figures, and a light-hearted mood. Men as well as women wore pink suits and dresses. Because the dye for materials was very expensive, not many could afford it, causing it to become a symbol for the upper social classes. The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is often seen as being perfectly in tune with the excesses of Louis XV’s regime, which was dedicated to amusement and delight. Like the long dresses which were very elaborate but difficult to breathe or move in. Rococo Pink reflects the atmosphere of that age, being a very sensual, elegant, and mature pink tone. 

Exposed Bright Pink is a mixture of magenta and pink fluorescent pigments.
The fluorescent pigments appear very intense under normal daylight. The chemical structure of the luminous pigments causes the short wavelength colours (UV and blue) to be converted to longer frequencies of visible light. Even in twilight, when the light contains a very high percentage of blue, these colour shades have a very intense effect. For this reason, they are also often used for markings in low light, foggy and misty situations on streets, in forests, and on ski slopes. The intense luminance and chromatic colours were significant in the 1960s, when the term “Neon” was introduced, deriving from the emerging fluorescent tubes that were also called neon tubes. Neon colours have a cautionary effect, but they also attract attention. In the 1980s and 1990s, the bright neon colours were often seen in fashion and interior design and had a revival in the 2010s.

Exposed Light Pink is a mixture of white base and pure pink fluorescent pigments.
The fluorescent pigments appear very intense under normal daylight. The chemical structure of the luminous pigments causes the short wavelength colours (UV and blue) to be converted to longer frequencies of visible light. Even in twilight, when the light contains a very high percentage of blue, these colour shades have a very intense effect. For this reason, they are also often used for markings in low light, foggy and misty situations on streets, in forests, and on ski slopes. The intense luminance and chromatic colours were significant in the 1960s, when the term “Neon” was introduced, deriving from the emerging fluorescent tubes that were also called neon tubes. Neon colours have a cautionary effect, but they also attract attention. In the 1980s and 1990s, the bright neon colours were often seen in fashion and interior design and had a revival in the 2010s.

"Silent Pink" is a light pink shade, a synthesis of observations and historical research made in Shanghai, China. Although pink is omnipresent in Chinese culture, art, history and modern daily life, it is not spoken of as a colour; there is no word for the colour pink in Mandarin - it is a 'silent colour'. In Chinese characters, pink is described as; powder red or powder colour, red grey, crape myrtle colour, rose or peach colour.

Curiously, pink was used in Chinese paintings as early as the 15th century. In early works, black ink lines and distinguished brushstrokes dominate, and the use of colour is rare. Cinnabar and azurite were the first commonly used minerals to manufacture red and blue pigments.

The most popular subjects in Chinese paintings were scenes of daily life, landscapes, flowers and birds. Quite often, women, noble figures and flowers were tinted with a hue of cinnabar, which appears as a light pink on paper.

Pink is also found on Jingdezhen porcelain ware, for example the traditional Nine Peach design vase and the vase with Fencai design of Eight Immortals, both from the Qianlong reign during the Qing dynasty between 1736 and 1795.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, pink is widely used in advertisements, on poster designs, and various propagandistic paintings and illustrations.

Peach Pink is modelled after a pot of pink colour, which I bought at the art market in Shanghai, China. The pink colour is very vivid, similar to the Exposed Bright Pink and is described as 桃红色 táo hóng sè. Looking up the characters in the dictionary, I found the following description; 桃红 táo hóng 像桃花的颜色 (xiàng táohuā de yánsè); 粉红 (fěnhóng) pink; colour of the peach flower.¹ By looking at the three characters isolated, one finds the words; 桃 peach 红 red 色colour.

Peach pink in Western culture is named after the pale colour of the peach fruit. That is where my research leads: to the question surrounding the extent of which the definitions of colours are the same in different languages. Perry Link, the author of An Anatomy of Chinese - Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics states: “…for example, the term 黄huáng does not correspond well to any English word. Dictionaries cite “yellow”, but huáng covers much more of the spectrum than yellow does. It begins with yellow, spans all of tan and goes pretty far into brown.”²

Pink may not be the first colour you associate with space, but it adorns the cosmos. «GJ504b Pink» is named after the pink exoplanet GJ504b. This colour is seen in pink nebulae, such as the Lagoon Nebula, 4,000 light-years from Earth, where the glow of ionized hydrogen gas gives it a pink hue. «GJ504b Pink» is also visible in the star-forming regions of spiral galaxies due to the ultraviolet light from newborn stars.

The namesake of this shade, the exoplanet GJ504b, situated 57 light-years from Earth, is a pink gas giant four times the mass of Jupiter. Its pink colour likely results from the powerful ultraviolet radiation from its host star interacting with the hydrogen gas in its atmosphere, combined with the planet's intrinsic heat—a warm 270 degrees Celsius, retained from its birth 160 million years ago. The pink exoplanet GJ504b was discovered in 2013 via the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, challenging existing models of planet formation.

Although GJ504b is not directly visible to humans, its discovery enhances our understanding of the composition and evolution of gas giants. The colour pink may not have any particular historical or cultural significance in space, but the presence of GJ504b Pink, with its striking colour, underlines the beauty and diversity of the cosmos and hints at the vast mysteries yet to be unravelled.

Co-written with AI

A vibrant fusion of Cell Pink, Bloc Pink and Concept Pink, Unity Pink embodies the spirit of transformation and progress. It combines the calming essence of Cell Pink with the activist energy of Bloc Pink and the visionary optimism of Concept Pink.

This shade symbolizes the intersection of tranquillity and rebellion, reflecting a world where peace and progressive action coexist. It embodies the spirit of change, encouraging bold steps towards a future where ideals become reality. Unity Pink is more than a colour; it's a statement of hope, resilience and bold transformation.