SHIGENOBU KOBAYASHI (b. 1925) is the founder and director of the Nippon Color & Design Research Institute. He is a graduate of the electronics department of the Hiroshima College of Technology and received a master's degree from Waseda University in Tokyo for his work in the field of color psychology.
Since founding the institute in 1966, he has been a leader in research on color psychology, publishing numerous books on the subject, including a color image dictionary and others exploring color in relation to design, architecture, and the environment. A detailed discussion of his theories is available in English in the publication Color Research and Application (volume 6, no. 2, Summer 1981) in an article titled "The Aim and Method of the Color Image Scale."
He is also an active participant in meetings of the International Color Association and a lecturer at the Musashi Institute of Technology in Tokyo.
THE NIPPON COLOR & DESIGN RESEARCH INSTITUTE founded in 1966, the institute is a leader in its field, acting as a color and design consultant to over 300 major Japanese corporations in fields as diverse as automobiles, home electronics, cosmetics, food, department stores, and home construction.
The institute's patented Color Image Scale is the centerpiece of its theories on the psychology of color. In addition, the institute has developed computer software based on the Image Scale and a large information data base for use in its research and consulting projects.