Outside the car market there is no comparable share series. These are the individual findings that exist, and the places where people assume a dataset that does not.
Towards neutral · moderate evidence · c. 1800–2020 (objects grouped in 20-year bands)
In photographs of 7,083 everyday objects from 21 categories (clocks, cameras, telephones, lighting, domestic appliances and others), the share of grey pixels rises over time while brown and yellow fall. The authors link this mainly to a change of materials from wood and brass towards plastic and metal.
Method: Computer vision on collection photographs: background pixels removed, remaining pixel colours pooled by each object's earliest date, and the colour mix compared across 20-year groups.
Caveat: A museum collection is a curated, non-random sample, and photographs record lighting and camera as well as object colour. The study measures pixel colour mix, not a chroma index, and publishes no percentage change; figures circulating in press coverage are not in the original analysis.
Source: Colour & Shape: Using Computer Vision to Explore the Science Museum Group Collection
Towards colour · limited evidence · 1960s onwards
The same analysis finds a smaller counter-current: very saturated colours begin to appear among the objects from the 1960s, coinciding with coloured plastics.
Method: Same collection-photograph analysis as the headline grey finding, read from its rolling colour-frequency frames.
Caveat: Described qualitatively by the authors; no measure of how large the saturated share is, and the grey trend is the stronger of the two.
Source: A little greyer and a bit more rectangular?
Towards neutral · limited evidence · 1960s–1990s
Within one category, telephones, the analysis shows a colourful period in the 1960s to 1980s followed by a turn to grey and black from the late 1980s.
Method: Object photographs of one collection category, ordered by date and inspected as colour mixes.
Caveat: One category in one collection; illustrates the pattern rather than measuring it across the market.
Source: Colour & Shape: Using Computer Vision to Explore the Science Museum Group Collection
No dataset / context · moderate evidence · 1935–2010
Across 160 films released between 1935 and 2010, mean frame luminance falls over time: films have become darker, alongside shorter shots and more on-screen motion.
Method: Frame-by-frame measurement of luminance, shot length and motion in a sample of 160 films, with linear trends fitted over release year.
Caveat: Luminance is brightness, not colourfulness, and the sample spans the switch from black-and-white to colour film. It shows darker films, not greyer ones; no comparable peer-reviewed study of film saturation over time was found.
Source: Quicker, faster, darker: Changes in Hollywood film over 75 years
No dataset / context · limited evidence · 2000s–2020s
The widely discussed 'orange and teal' look and the impression that recent films and series are more muted are not backed by any published measurement of saturation across a representative sample of titles that Colourwise could find.
Method: Absence of evidence: the closest measured study (luminance over 75 years) is cited instead.
Caveat: An absence of published data, not evidence that no change happened.
Source: Quicker, faster, darker: Changes in Hollywood film over 75 years
Towards colour · moderate evidence · 1958–2022
LEGO's brick palette grew from a handful of basic colours in 1958 to more than 110 colours in active use at its 2004 peak, was cut to about 60 by 2007, and stood at around 70 in 2022.
Method: Newspaper analysis of Rebrickable's crowdsourced part catalogue, counting colours in use each year, with LEGO's corporate historian interviewed.
Caveat: Counts how many colours exist, not how much of each is produced; the same analysis notes that a census of all bricks ever made would be dominated by black, grey and white.
Source: How Lego bricks went from five colors to nearly 200
Towards colour · moderate evidence · 1903–1998
Crayola's crayon range grew from the original box of eight colours in 1903 to a 48-colour assortment by 1949, a 64-colour box in the late 1950s and a first 120-colour assortment in 1998.
Method: Documented product-assortment history; the 1903 box of eight is confirmed by Crayola's own FAQ.
Caveat: A product range is what a maker offers, not what anyone chose; a longer crayon box says nothing about the colour of cars, homes or phones.
Source: History of Crayola crayons
No dataset / context · limited evidence · 1990s–2020s
No published dataset measures the colour of real homes over time. The idea that interiors turned grey rests on design-press commentary, illustrative photo essays and paint-maker trend announcements, not on measurement of rooms, sales or listing photographs.
Method: Absence of evidence: search of design press, museum and academic sources for a measured interior colour series found none.
Caveat: Paint makers hold sales data that could answer this but do not publish it by colour family.
Source: Is the World Less Colorful? Highlighting the Color Evolution of Objects and Spaces
Towards colour · limited evidence · 2022–2025
'Dopamine decor' — rooms using several saturated colours in blocks — was named as an interiors trend in 2022 and was still being written about as current in 2025.
Method: Design-press coverage of a named style; no survey or sales measurement.
Caveat: A named trend in magazines and social media is not evidence of how many homes changed colour; no share data exists.
Source: Dopamine decor (feature on the colour-maximalist interiors trend)
No dataset / context · limited evidence · 2000s–2020s
Claims that logos have 'flattened' and lost colour, or that clothing has become more grey and black, circulate widely, but Colourwise found no peer-reviewed or methodologically documented dataset that measures either over time.
Method: Absence of evidence: no measured series located for brand marks or apparel colour; the source cited is an example of the claim being made without such data.
Caveat: Absence of published measurement; the claims may be true but are currently unquantified.
Source: Is the World Less Colorful? Highlighting the Color Evolution of Objects and Spaces