ColorADD

About ColorADD

ColorADD offers a symbolic language system designed to help the colorblind community identify colors, addressing a market of approximately 350 million people worldwide. The company was founded in 2010 by Miguel Neiva, a Portuguese graphic designer and professor at the University of Minho. Neiva, who is not colorblind himself, was motivated by the desire to use design to improve people's lives and create a more inclusive world.

The core of the business is a proprietary code based on fundamental design principles. It utilizes five simple geometric shapes to represent the primary colors (red, yellow, blue) as well as black and white. By combining these primary symbols, users can decipher a full palette of secondary colors and varying shades, similar to mixing actual pigments. The system is intended to be implemented across any product or service where color is a critical factor for identification, choice, or orientation.

ColorADD operates on a licensing business model, generating revenue by charging fees to companies and public entities that wish to incorporate the code into their products and services. The licensing fee is adjusted based on the partner's profile to ensure affordability and scalability. This for-profit activity supports a non-profit arm, ColorADD.Social, which focuses on social integration and education, particularly by promoting color vision screenings and deploying the code in schools under a pro-bono model. The company provides partners with a digital toolkit and technical support to ensure correct implementation of the code.

The system has seen adoption in a wide array of sectors. Clients have included hospitals for patient wristbands, transportation authorities for subway maps, and manufacturers for products like coloring pencils and clothing labels. A significant milestone was a partnership with Mattel in 2017 to launch a colorblind-friendly version of the card game UNO, which incorporated the ColorADD code. The company also offers a mobile app that can identify colors in real-time through a phone's camera, providing an additional support tool for the colorblind community.