He and Deanna Troi!
Yellow with a greenish tinge.
Some of us may need to adjust our TV sets.
He looks beige, with a little added sparkle for effect.
Kind of ironic, the gold shirts from the Original Series are actually supposed to be a sort of greenish hue, studio lights and cameras made them seem gold.
At least, that’s the Trek legend.
**Irishman **already explained Worf, but Geordi was the conn officer and on the Command track before being promoted to Chief Engineer, which is in the Operations division. His uniform color changed because he became the head of a major Operations department.
This also probably explains why Spock wore blue even though he was the Executive Officer on the original Enterprise. As the Science head, he had to wear its color.
I thought he was more of a yellowish-white.
Speaking of uniforms, how come Troi got away with wearing the jumpsuits and such (I loved her turquoise dress) until Captain Jellico forced her into a uniform?
I believe the general canon line on this one is that counselors didn’t have to wear Starfleet uniforms.
Originally, it was supposed to be Riker wearing the v-neck jumpsuit, then the producers decided that Troi had much, much better cleavage, and they made the switch. They still did manage to get Riker’s chest into the first season, though.
I believe Troi looked best in the Starfleet uniform, Jellico did her a favor.
From my limited viewing of ST:TNG, I got the idea that Data was endowed by his creator with the ability to mimic humans in every way and the desire to experience existence as humans do, yet he gave him an inhuman appearance, rather than one that would have made it easier for him to fit in and observe, unobserved. Was there an in-story explanation for this?
Weren’t Kirk and Spock (and actually, all the senior officers from TOS) already wearing red/maroon/burgundy/whatever in the movies before TNG ever debuted?
Agreed. You’ll notice, though, that Troi’s blue uniform was a slightly brighter shade of blue than anybody else’s blue uniform.
The jackets were maroon, yes, but the turtlenecks, sleeve strips, and whatever that thing on the shoulder that holds the rank insignia is were all color-coded and indicated what department you were in.
Data’s color always reminded me of that yellowish-bisque-beige which was the universal color of all computer component casings at one time, and so it seemed appropriate.
Sort of. In the episode in which the crew discovers Data’s brother/evil twin, Lore, somebody asks which of them was created first. Lore states that Data was created first, but that he was imperfect, and that Dr. Soong then created Lore, correcting the imperfections in the process.
However, Soong later contradicts that, stating that Lore was created first, but was so perfectly human-like that people were afraid of him. So he deactivated Lore and created Data, introducing imperfections (mainly the lack of emotions and the verbal peculiarities) to make him more obviously artificial and thus, supposedly, less frightening.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t address their physical appearance, as Lore looked just as funny as Data.
ETA: I suppose it’s possible that Lore originally looked more natural. Perhaps Soong’s first attempt at making him seem less human involved altering his appearance.
Bzzzzz. When Data was promoted to executive officer under Capt. Jellico, he wore command red.
Bzzzz. Executive officer is an appointment or a designation, not a promotion.
I’ll have to re-watch the episode, but my recollection is specifically of Jellico telling Data he was promoting him to the XO position. Barring that evidence, I’ll grant that it’s a fair cop. 
In one episode, Data made a “daughter”, Lau. He commented that he had managed to make her skin and hair much more realistic than Soong had been able, and in fact Riker mistakes her for human during the episode. So I think that the canon answer is that Soong tried to make Data as realistic as possible, but he was just a lot better at positronics than at cosmetology.
I didn’t realize Geordi still needed to be explained.
The official explanation was that as a Ship’s Counselor, she was not required to wear a uniform.
I assume this is a joke. Marina Sirtis got the jumpsuits because she had a habit of nibbling at the food services table all day, and struggled with weight issues. The soft jumpsuit was supposed to flatter her figure. Turns out the uniform worked better, though had less cleavage.
this is the story i heard. the outdoor sunny scenes were filmed and the makeup was lovely and sparkly. everyone thought it was perfect.
inside the ship not so much. for some reason they stuck with the makeup instead of toning it better for the interior.