Confession: I get a C- in Tibi's "Color Wheel"

My math anxiety has been activated! But here's what I've learned.

Giving up math has been one of the best parts of growing up. (I’m still mildly traumatized by the math requirement at Penn, where I went to school. How did I not go to one of those places where you do what you want, like Bennington?) At M.Gemi, where I was once creative director, the CEO once took over completing an Excel spreadsheet for me because my brain short circuited. I love Tibi’s color wheel, but it’s reactivated my math anxiety. While I’ve never learned so much about color as I have from Tibi (pretty sure the last time I officially studied it, the curriculum was ROYGBIV) and often look at that wheel and think: “I have it!” — sometimes … I lose it.

What I know, A Review

Color wheel things

• You’ve got your neutrals: black, brown navy (why is black ring 1 and the others are Ring 2?)

• You’ve got your brights + your pastels and they’re the same ring of the wheel, 4 (and they should be IGS — icky, glossy or sculptural)

• And then you’ve got this third ring, which are these indefinable colors you use “ish” to try to describe them

One, ton, none things

• An outfit can be “none” which would be all neutrals (confusing, because I could look at all white and think that’s one, but white is a neutral? But ok, all black is none. But it’s ring 1 — I’m sweating a touch.)

• An outfit can be “one,” which means your eye focuses on one thing, either a pop or a whole look of one color (but maybe the one is white a pop of white, so a neutral? )

• And an outfit could be a ton, which I once thought is just a lot of different colors, but is actually more nuanced, the colors somehow working well together, so that your eye moves nicely over the entire look (which I think is subjective and hard to pin down, especially for the non-designer, artist, stylist, etc.)

• And then the “two” is what you want to avoid because the eye doesn’t know where to look. So that might be too equally powerful colors.

Where I get a little confused

• Wearing all one color and another color shoe — I thought that was a two, but I wore an all lemon outfit, all cotton (but sculptural) and a teal-ish shoe. I felt good and everyone seemed to say the shoe was acting as a neutral (!?)

• What makes a “ton” work? Can it be all colors and no neutrals? Jeans are a 2? What if they’re grayish? Isn’t the brown suit a 2? Neutral brown?

• In the math — so then you start to see things like the below (credit: Tibi) and then more so when you start trying to go a step further and start getting some formulas — like 2+2+4+3 … I can feel myself starting to get anxious gut…

So let’s back up for a sec. (and also, breathe)

• Remember, this is supposed to be a helpful tool, not a math formula

• If it’s not additive for you, you don’t have to use it

• Also, the whole Tibi rules color discussion was built on a foundation of: “things to do if you’re feeling unsettled” — I was not feeling unsettled on the all lemon/teal shoe day, for example (In the words of hard core fashion expert James Taylor: “If it feels nice, don’t think twice.”)

The wheel unlocked: A new frame for the word-centric

I think there are so many great learnings in Tibi’s color conversation and the wheel, but the mathiness of it is making me shut down.

So let me share the way I am thinking about it right now, which is helping me, and therefore may help you!