COLOUR coding is ace. Take notes. Important? Orange highlighter. For reference? Green highlighter. Something not vital, but good to skim over? Yellow.

This logic is inbred because there’s nothing I find more satisfying than a common design whose purpose is differentiated by colour.

Utility pipes, for example.

• Red for electrical power lines
• Orange for telecoms and optical fibres
• Blue for drinking water
• Yellow for gas
• Green for sewerage and waste

That’s not all.

There’s Penguin books:

• Orange for general fiction
• Green for crime
• Pink for travel
• Red for drama
• Purple for essays
• Grey for world affairs
• Yellow for ‘misc’

Ford adopted this with the 1989 Fiesta MkIII.

How? By altering the pinstriping in the bumper. Utter genius:

• Silver for ‘posh’ Ghia
• Black for ‘cooking’ 1.6S
• Blue for ‘hot’ XR2i
• Green for the ‘scorching’ (and later) RS Turbo

Thus, you could spot the cred of the Fiesta approaching you at 100 paces – the complete antithesis of today’s manufacturer idea of badge-name-less cars.

Today, I still idolise that blue stripe, and would put the green stripe on old Gormley’s Fourth Plinth.

Why, when we know so much more about clear and easy interfaces, are car makers not doing the same today?

Why Ford Econetics break the rules

Volkswagen looks to history for GTD

BMW tells me why its instruments are lit in orange