Every day I am approached either in person or via the web to help save the whales, the homeless, the children. Hell, a guy in a koala suit even hassles me about saving his species. Yet no one ever talks about saving rainbows, even though this cause may be more important than any other.
When I was a kid, we were told in church that rainbows were a symbol of god’s promise to never flood the earth again. My less religious friends were adamant that, no, there was gold at the end of them there rainbows, or at least a leprechaun or something. Now as an adult, they are the symbol of tolerance and gay pride. When did rainbows ask to be categorised? Why can’t we just let them be a cool thing that hangs in the sky around rainstorms?
Thankfully, graphic designer Chuck Anderson has rescued the rainbow from its pigenholed existence and started using the seven colours in marvellously unexpected ways. Such as in Lights for Drowning (above), which makes me feel like there’s a million parties going on and I haven’t been invited to any of them. Kind of like New Years Eve, where everyone is having fabulous parties yet at the same time wondering whether there was a better option somewhere else.
Anderson has released a new book, Wandering Off Into Space, which is full of his trademark surreal rainbows, trippy light effects and hypercolour spectrums.
So thank you, Chuck, for saving the rainbow.
