How do you progress in this academy?

Short answer

The Color Academy is a map, not a staircase: lessons are organized into subject areas, and every lesson's card shows how deep it goes and how certain its claims are. No lesson is locked; you can start from a single lesson you're curious about, or from a learning path built around your profession.

Subject area and code: knowing where you are

The program is divided into 21 subject areas and 2 special series. The subject areas cover color's different faces: the science of light and vision, the language of color, history and culture, materials and chemistry, psychology, art, graphic design, digital product, screen and print, photography and film, data visualization, architecture, fashion, marketing, the economics of color, industry, computational color, philosophy and research. Every lesson has a permanent code: two letters show the subject area, two digits show its order. BI-04 is the fourth lesson in the Light and Vision Science area.

The codes do one more job. A concept is covered in detail in exactly one lesson in the program; other lessons mention it in at most a sentence or two and give the code of the lesson that owns it. For example, the only lesson that covers the types of color blindness in detail is BI-12; when the interface design lesson reaches that topic, it just shows this code. So when you see a code in a lesson, you can read it like a door: the full version of that concept is there.

Depth: choosing how far down to go

There's depth instead of level, and every lesson's card states it. Discovery lessons require no prior knowledge; all eight lessons in this series are at Discovery depth. Foundations lessons are for anyone starting the subject seriously and form the program's largest layer. Advanced lessons are written for someone who works or studies in the field, and Expert lessons for professionals and researchers.

Recommended prerequisites aren't a lock. You can go straight into an Advanced lesson and, when you hit a code you don't understand, go back to that code. The program is built on the principle that any lesson can be read on its own.

Evidence label: reading how certain the lesson is

At the top of every lesson stands one of six labels: Science, Contested, History, Industry, Application, and Myth. The label isn't just decoration — it sets the lesson's language. A Science-labeled lesson states an established consensus in a definite voice. A Contested-labeled lesson speaks in terms of "some studies" and always gives the opposing view. A Myth-labeled lesson takes a common claim, shows where it came from and what the evidence says, and ends with a verdict: false, partly true, or unresolved.

This label matters especially in color psychology. Sentences like "blue is calming" or "red boosts sales" circulate widely, but the evidence behind most of them is weak. Reading the label means knowing how much weight to give a sentence. Lessons that touch on light and perception follow one more principle: how the same finding plays out across different skin tones is stated separately, because color technologies are known to have assumed a single skin tone for a long time.

Paths and capstone projects

If you don't know where to start, one of eleven learning paths will suggest an order for you. Each path is built for a particular audience and runs 18 to 32 lessons: Color literacy speaks to everyone, Graphic and brand design to designers, UI/UX and software to interface developers, Color economics to analysts, and the Researcher path to graduate students and academics. Lessons are shared across paths; the BI-12 you read on one path is the same lesson on another. The list of paths is in the learning paths section.

Most paths close with a capstone project: a brand color system, a space's color plan, a redesign of five bad charts, or a small preregistered experiment. Today these projects are offered as a learning task; they aren't tied to a certificate or a grading system.

The "Test yourself" section at the end of every lesson isn't decoration either. Trying to recall what you read produces more durable learning than rereading the same text.

Example — a graphic designer's first week

Picture a graphic designer who just started a job at an agency. On Monday, they read a few Discovery lessons and get familiar with the program's language. On Tuesday, they open the Graphic and brand design path and move into the first lessons of the DT area. On Wednesday, they run into the code BI-14 in a lesson, get curious about the science of simultaneous contrast, stop by there, and return to their path. On Thursday, they see the Contested label on a color psychology lesson and think twice before promising a client that "this color inspires trust." On Friday, they test themselves with the questions at the end of the lessons and reread the section they got stuck on. The designer never ran into a lock; they just followed a map.

Common misconception

Summary

1. The program consists of 21 subject areas and 2 special series; every lesson's permanent code shows its subject area and order, and codes take you to the lesson where a concept is explained in full.
2. There's depth instead of level, and there's no lock; the prerequisites stated on the card are only a recommendation.
3. The evidence label tells you how certain the lesson's language is, and the learning path tells you where to start.

Test yourself

1. (Easy) In the code PZ-06, what do "PZ" and "06" show?
2. (Easy) How many learning paths are there in the program?
3. (Medium) Which learning path fits you? Write down your role and your goal, and justify the path you chose using the criteria explained in this lesson.
4. (Medium) How does the language of a Contested-labeled lesson differ from a Science-labeled one?
5. (Hard) When you come across a concept in a lesson that's owned by another lesson, what are you expected to do, and why was this system set up?
6. (Hard) Why might skipping the "Test yourself" section and reading the lesson twice instead produce less durable learning?

Answers

1. PZ shows the Marketing and Consumer area; 06 shows the sixth lesson in that area ("Subject area and code").
2. Eleven; each one suggests an 18-to-32-lesson order for a particular audience ("Paths and capstone projects").
3. The answer varies by person. A good answer states your role (student, designer, analyst, photographer…), your goal, and which subject areas stand out for that goal; for example, the UI/UX and software path for an interface developer, or the Color literacy path for general curiosity. It also takes depth and the evidence label into account ("Paths and capstone projects").
4. A Science-labeled lesson states an established consensus in a definite voice; a Contested-labeled lesson speaks in terms of "some studies" and always gives the opposing view ("Evidence label").
5. You're expected to read the concept's brief reminder and, if needed, go to the code it gives. This way, the same concept isn't explained over and over across lessons, and its full version stays in one place ("Subject area and code").
6. Studies show that trying to recall what you read produces better recall a week later than rereading does; rereading only gives an advantage on a test given immediately ("Paths and capstone projects").

Sources

• Color Academy lesson program (v2), 2026: subject areas, the depth table, evidence labels, the concept-ownership map, and learning paths.
• Roediger, H. L., and Karpicke, J. D., "Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention," Psychological Science 17: 249–255, 2006.
• Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., and Willingham, D. T., "Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques," Psychological Science in the Public Interest 14(1), 2013.

Next step

PS-01 shows why evidence labels are necessary in the most striking area of all: it traces the source of the popular "color meanings" charts, separates experimental research from anecdote, and gives five questions for questioning any color claim. DT-01, meanwhile, builds the shared vocabulary you'll need no matter which path you choose: it teaches you to describe a color by its hue, saturation, and value.