Colors are used, just as words and depictions (i.e., pictures, symbols, code, etc.) are used, to convey information to an onlooker. Colors and depictions are particularly well suited for trans-language conveyance of information. For example, many traffic signs have shapes, colors and depictions which immediately convey to a driver the desired traffic information without necessity of the driver reading words. A well known example is the ubiquitous stop sign, which is immediately recognizable because it is always red and always octagonal, and this is so irrespective of the word “STOP” being written thereupon in the language of the subject country (which language may or may not be readable by the driver). In this vein, automobile manufacturers have adopted depictions on the dashboard to convey to drivers information, such as international standard depictions for switches, gauges, etc. which represent lights, oil, temperature, wipers, etc.
With regard to the utilization of colors and/or depictions as a substitute for the information conveyed to an onlooker by words, is the necessity for the onlooker to intuitively associate the color and/or depiction with the information desired to be conveyed. One longstanding and well recognized association with respect to color is an onlooker's immediate intuitive thermal association of blue with cold and red with hot. To this end, automobile manufacturers have designed dashboard heating, air conditioning and ventilation (HVAC) system temperature controls with a graphic color scheme of blue and red, wherein blue is located at the colder end of the available settings and red is located at the hotter end of the available settings.
In the design of a graphic for a color coding scheme for HVAC systems, automobile manufacturers are constrained by a known problem in the printing arts in which one color cannot be faded into another color because the printing of a color onto another color that has already been printed on the same surface results in the inks commingling, creating a blotchy, extremely undesirable colorization which is not the desired color fade, but is of other colors, likely including brown and/or black. Therefore, automobile manufacturers have been forced to substitute for a true color fade from blue to red (and vice versa) an alternative color scheme that merely suggests mixing between the colors. In this regard, FIGS. 1 through 5 depict various conventional color schemes for HVAC systems in which the aforedescribed problem of inability to achieve true color fading is side-stepped.
In FIG. 1, an HVAC system temperature control has a rotatable knob 10 having a position indicator 10p and the color graphic indicative of cold to hot (and vice versa) is represented by a tapered red colored R color graphic 12 and a tapered blue colored B color graphic 14, wherein a driver intuitively knows the temperature setting of the HVAC system by location of the position indicator with respect to the color graphic 12, 14 (colder in the more counterclockwise position, hotter in the more clockwise position).
In FIG. 2, an HVAC system temperature control has also a rotatable knob 10′ having a position indicator 10p′ and the color graphic indicative of cold to hot (and vice versa) is represented by a tapered red colored R color graphic 12′ which adjacently coextends with respect to a tapered blue colored B color graphic 14′, wherein, again, a driver intuitively knows the temperature setting of the HVAC system by location of the position indicator with respect to the color graphic 12′, 14′.
In FIG. 3, an HVAC system temperature control is again depicted as having a rotatable knob 10″ with a position indicator 10p″ and the color graphic indicative of cold to hot (and vice versa) is represented by a series of Roman numerals in the form of red colored R color graphic 12″ and blue colored B color graphic 14″, wherein, again, a driver intuitively knows the temperature setting of the HVAC system by location of the position indicator with respect to the color graphic 12″, 14″.
In FIG. 4, an HVAC system temperature control has, once again, a rotatable knob 10′″ having a position indicator 10p′″ and the color graphic indicative of cold to hot (and vice versa) is represented by a red colored R color graphic 12′″ and a blue colored B color graphic 14′″ each in the form of a dot at the respective end of travel of the knob, wherein a driver intuitively knows the temperature setting of the HVAC system by location of the position indicator with respect to the color graphic 12″′, 14″′.
In FIG. 5, an HVAC system temperature control is a slidable knob 10″″, which itself serves as a position indicator, and the color graphic indicative of cold to hot (and vice versa) is represented by a tapered red colored R color graphic 12″″ and a tapered blue colored B color graphic 14″″, wherein a driver intuitively knows the temperature setting of the HVAC system by location of the position indicator with respect to the relatively varying widths of the color graphic 12″″, 14″″.
It will thus be appreciated that because of the inability to achieve a color fade by directly printing one color upon another, color schemes are practiced in which colors are not actually printed over each other on the same surface in a fading manner, but rather a mixing is simulated by adjacently positioned colors.
Accordingly, what remains needed in the art is a true, continuous color fade transition between two different colors, particularly as this color fade transition intuitively conveys information (as for example hot to cold, and vice versa).