What Is It like to Be Color Blind?

And a graphic designer at that?

Well, honestly, I've never been under the spotlight for being color blind. Or maybe I am just lucky not to be surrounded with scumbags who point at random objects and ask me what color that thing is the moment I tell them I am color blind.

It was back in college when I found out about it after taking an Ishihara test during one of our lessons in Anatomy and Physiology. I'd usually answer a random number in frustration because I cannot see what my classmates can. Apparently, I was the only one in our class with that defect.

Ishihara plate sample. What number can you see? Because I see nothing.

I never really thought about it as a disability until quite recently when I purchased phone cases online. See, I bought these because they're cute and they come in my favorite color: blue.

I got mildly disappointed when I received the second one (Paris) that looked greenish upon closer look. All this time I thought it was dark blue with a hint of green (something that's bluer than blue-green but not this green green). And I'm not really a fan of green. Although I totally blame this to monitor differences (the colors that appear online do vary from the actual), this is not the first time I've confused one color to another.

Being color blind was never an issue to me, my activities of daily living, nor my job. However, I am thinking, how do I actually fare as a graphic designer? I know there are great designers out there and I'm nowhere near their caliber. Even though I have not received complaints about the quality of my work yet (or at least not to my face), I've had projects that have gone through rejections, if not, too many revisions before it was finally approved. Either I suck or the client was just hard to please. Or both. Maybe those rejections were actually from clients cringing over my designs with all those mismatched hues, unusual color schemes, and poor color choices. Que horror! Fancy a career change, Sarah?

I remember the time when I took a medical exam for my student permit and I aced the colorblindness test. Okay, I'm half-kidding. They only showed me one plate and I got that one right. Thank heavens! So today, I took different Ishihara tests just for the heck of it and I got the same result I had in college (as if the condition changes over time noh? Haha)

Nothing interesting here. But in case you want to know, just click the image to zoom.

Partial, moderate, mild. Well, that is not so bad at all, is it?

So I guess, I'll postpone the career change until I get an offer from GMA Network and be the next Kara David. But until then, I'll just work my ass off transforming the designs I made into actual websites while I excruciatingly explain to people what this color blind nurse is doing in the IT field. 

And also, this will probably serve as a reminder why I should never do my own makeup.