Peter T. Donahue
Peter T. Donahue is a graphic designer, educator, cartoonist, and color theorist with a passion for making color science accessible. His simple and creative explanations of color perception, mixing, and harmony have earned him millions of views on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
Peter has consulted for major manufacturers, lectured for universities, and delivered keynotes on the intersection of design, education and color theory history. His work bridges historical systems with modern digital tools, helping designers refine their palettes with a deeper understanding of how color works.
Peter is an active member of the Inter-Society Color Council’s Color Literacy Project, an international team of scientists, educators, and artists developing free resources for meta-disciplinary color education. He is also a full-time art and design instructor at a private school.
What was your favorite book as a child?
Calvin and Hobbes was probably my favorite—we had all the books and I reread them multiple times. I loved the humor of course, but also Hobbes’ perspective on humanity, and Calvin’s limitless imagination.
What do you love to do for fun?
For fun, I collect occlupanids, better known as bread-bag clips. I’ve always been fascinated by little details hiding in everyday life. One day I discovered occlupanology was a thing—now I am always on the hunt for rare species!
Location:
Morris Plains, NJ
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Creative Process:
Much of my writing grows out of two lifelong fascinations: color, and the way people learn. During my twenty years as an English teacher, I was steeped in the idea that knowledge is socially constructed—that we make meaning together, through conversation and context. That way of thinking naturally seeped into my creative work. My science fiction novelette “Favorites from Here and Abroad” (Metaphorosis, 2019), for instance, explores what happens when a superintelligent AI is “adopted” by a family and asked to understand reality through human eyes.
In the last five years, I’ve turned that same curiosity toward color theory. I became intrigued not just by how colors mix on a palette, but by how our shared knowledge of color has been shaped by cultural and economic forces. Questions like “Why did Johannes Itten’s red-yellow-blue color wheel become the one every art student learns?” pulled me down rabbit holes of research. Because color science can turn highly technical very quickly, I’ve come to love the challenge of translating those complexities into stories that are clear, playful, and engaging for a broad audience.
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Available for School Visits:
I haven’t done school/library visits as an author, but I have done color theory workshops. In my color theory workshops, I help students navigate color to better plan harmonies and predict paint mixtures.