Faber Birren

Faber Birren (11 September 1900 – 30 December 1988) was an American author and consultant on color and color theory.

Faber Birren was born in Chicago, Illinois on 11 September 1900, the son of Joseph P. Birren, a landscape painter, and Crescentia (Lang) Birren, a pianist. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago while in high school and the University of Chicago for two years where he studied color theory.

He began publishing articles on color in 1924; his first book, Color in Vision was published in 1928.

In 1934 he established his own company and worked as an industrial color consultant, advising clients on the psychological effects of color on safety, employee morale, productivity and sales. His recommendations included changing wall and interior colors to reduce visual fatigue, and using bright colors on machinery to reduce accidents.DuPont, Monsanto, and General Electric were among his clients as well as the military.

He also wrote extensively on color, writing forty books and over 250 articles on the subject.

Birren died in Stamford, Connecticut on 30 December 1988 after a stroke.

Birren married Wanda Martin and they had two daughters, Zoe and Fay.

In 1971, Birren donated nearly two hundred books about color, many of them rare, to the Yale University Library. He also established an endowment for color research.