FridaySep 26, 2025
  • AI
  • Design
  • Innovation
  • Psychology
  • Technology
  • Future
  • Culture
logo-1logo-2logo-3

How Chocolate and Furniture Helped Fight Racial Bias and Sparked Kodak’s Colour Revolution

September 7, 2024
Technology, Design, Psychology
, +3

How Chocolate and Furniture Helped Fight Racial Bias and Sparked Kodak’s Colour Revolution

profile-pic

Sakshi Chowdhry Marketing Manager

featured image

Share some love

Who knew that chocolate and furniture could overhaul the world of photography as it once was?

How Chocolate and Furniture Helped Fight Racial Bias and Sparked Kodak’s Colour Revolution

    How Chocolate and Furniture Helped Fight Racial Bias and Sparked Kodak’s Colour Revolution

      Copy link

      This might sound like the blurb of a Lifetime documentary. In the 1970s, a seemingly trivial issue with how chocolate and furniture appeared in photographs led to a monumental change in the way Kodak—and the world—saw color.

      Copy link

      The George Eastman-led company got called out by some furniture and chocolate companies because their film wasn't working right. Light-grained or dark-grained wood tones in photographs developed from Kodak film all looked the same. Similarly, it took a lot of work to tell the difference between dark and milk chocolate. The advertising world bore the brunt of all controversies.

      Copy link

      With their business on the line, Kodak decided to investigate.

      Copy link
      blog-image
      Copy link

      Trivia: If you happen to find a picture from 50 years ago, there is a 90% chance it was clicked by a Kodak camera, captured on a Kodak film, and subsequently printed on a Kodak paper. — Business History

      Copy link

      Technicolor, a revolutionary color motion picture process introduced in the early 20th century, transformed visual media by bringing vivid, saturated colors to the screen. Widely adopted in the 1950s, Technicolor replaced black-and-white photography, allowing audiences to experience films in full color for the first time. This technological leap soon extended to photography, making color photos accessible to the general public and enabling people to capture images that highlighted features like green eyes and fair skin in rich detail.

      Copy link

      As the demand for photo processing and printing services surged, one-hour photo labs sprang up across the country to meet the need. Kodak, a key player in this industry, supplied many of these labs with printers. To ensure consistent color quality, each Kodak printer needed to be calibrated and standardized before printing. To achieve this, Kodak provided labs with a “Shirley Card,” a color reference card first created in the 1950s.

      Copy link
      blog-image
      Copy link

      The Shirley Card featured a portrait of a woman named Shirley, along with six color patches, including primary colors (red, yellow, and cyan) and intermediate shades like pink, green, and another shade of blue. Shirley had light-colored eyes and fair skin, and her portrait was labeled "normal" beneath it. The goal, as explained by Harvard University art history and architecture professor Sarah Lewis, was to ensure that all Shirleys appeared well in every photograph. These calibration cards were also used in film and television, where Shirley was referred to as "China Girl," a nod to the porcelain mannequins used in early screen tests for makeup standards on set.

      Copy link

      However, this standardization process primarily benefited lighter skin tones, as the Shirley Card was optimized for fair skin. As a result, people of color were often marginalized in the color processing, leading to less accurate representations in photographs.

      Copy link

      In a New York Times article, Sarah Lewis, an art history and architecture professor at Harvard University, explains “When you sent off your film to get developed, lab technicians would use the image of a white woman with brown hair named Shirley as the measuring stick against which they calibrated the colors. Quality control meant ensuring that Shirley’s face looked good. It has translated into the color-balancing of digital technology. In the mid-1990s, Kodak created a multiracial Shirley Card with three women, one black, one white, and one Asian, and later included a Latina model, in an attempt intended to help camera operators calibrate skin tones. These were not adopted by everyone since they coincided with the rise of digital photography. The result was film emulsion technology that still carried over the social bias of earlier photographic conventions.”

      Copy link
      blog-image
      Copy link

      Lorna Roth, a professor at Concordia University professor, says that it took complaints from furniture and chocolate manufacturers in the 1960s and 1970s for Kodak to start to fix color photography’s bias. Earl Kage, Kodak’s former manager of research and head of Color Photo Studios, received complaints from chocolate companies who were dissatisfied with how their products' brown tones appeared in photographs. Furniture companies also raised concerns about the lack of color variation between different types of wood in their ads. According to the research by professor Roth, Kage had previously heard complaints from parents about the poor quality of graduation photos, where color contrast issues made it difficult to capture a diverse group accurately. However, it was the pressure from the chocolate and furniture companies that ultimately compelled Kodak to take action. Kodak may have gone bankrupt, often cited as a consequence of their lack of innovation and growing competition. And while movies like Black Panther, Moonlight, and Crazy Rich Asians showcase incredible representation, it might give the impression that the world has healed—but we still have a long way to go.

      Copy link

      In 2024, despite having access to the best possible tools, many photographers, particularly white photographers, still struggle to capture darker skin tones accurately. These tools are as good as the people who use them. The challenge isn’t just technical but deeply cultural. We now have an abundance of technology that can faithfully represent any skin tone in all its richness and beauty but the stigma around darker skin remains deeply ingrained in many cultures. This conscious or subconscious bias often prevents photographers from doing justice to their subjects.

      Copy link

      It is not enough to rely on equipment. Photographers must take the time to study how different skin tones interact with lighting and surroundings, to understand how to highlight and honor the authenticity of each individual. True progress lies in recognizing that photography is not just about capturing an image but about understanding the people being photographed.

      Copy link

      “I suffered first as a child from discrimination, poverty ... So I think it was a natural follow from that that I should use my camera to speak for people who are unable to speak for themselves.”

      Copy link

      Copy link

      Words to be remembered by Gordon Parks, American photographer, composer, poet and one of the most groundbreaking figures in 20th century photography.

      eye-icon Hide reactions
      openvytwitterlinkedInplus

      Was the article helpful?Spread the word

      About the Author

      profile pic

      Sakshi Chowdhry

      As a marketer, Sakshi believes in a simple truth: strategy should have soul, campaigns should have heart, and every good idea deserves a seat at the table, even if one has to fight for it. Her bookmarks tab is a mess. Brand decks, street food blogs, and obscure medical dramas that no one but her seems to care about. She likes to write about the strange and beautiful intersections of creativity, culture, and business.

      View profile
      More from Sakshi Chowdhry

      NOVA Food Classification Explained: How Ultra-Processed Foods Impact Your Health

      profile-image
      Sakshi Chowdhry
      blog-feature-image

      Why Doctors Are Renaming Obesity to ABCD And What It Means for Healthcare, Stigma and Design

      profile-image
      Sakshi Chowdhry
      blog-feature-image

      Emotional Carbonation: Gen Z’s Addiction to Diet Coke

      profile-image
      Sakshi Chowdhry
      blog-feature-image

      Stay informed on
      all things Foresight in our awesome weekly newsletter.

      Stay in the loop
      with Sakshi's latest articles!

      By continuing you are agreeing to T&C. Learn more

      Loading suggestions...
      blog footer mask image
      logo

      A Colosseum of modern ideas & discoveries, reshaping norms forthe human future.

      Do you have a story to share?

      Write to us and we shall publish it!

      star-image
      © 2025 Sparklin Innovations
      Sparklin.com Contact Us
      Privacy policyTerm of serviceSite Map