An ode to yellow and pink

And why it is a joyful, positive colour combination

This article was first published in Slanted Magazine #38 — Colours.

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A couple of years ago, hoping to understand how colour works, I started building a personal two-colour combination library using coloured paper. Oftentimes, many of these pairs were lying around on my desk overnight. As I passed by the next day, I noticed how combinations of yellow and pink always made me smile — even in grumpy morning situations. I wondered: how could a simple two-colour palette positively alter my mood?

If I took each hue separately, on one hand I saw yellows at full intensity with, at most, a touch of white. Yellow, the lightest colour of the rainbow, is usually sunny, outgoing and annoyingly optimistic, and the reason behind unreasonably large bowls of lemons on Pinterest kitchen counters. It is not all sunshine and butterflies however: vibrant yellow is also worn by the venomous viper and is the preferred background colour of warning signs. Personally, I appreciated bright yellow in small doses but it had never made it to my all-star favourites, possibly because I speak quietly and also happen to look terrible in it.

Pinks, on their own, had a softer liveliness to them. They originated from magenta (a cooler version of red), generously diluted with white. Pinks are sweet in both taste and temperament, eternally romantic and for a long time linked to femininity, though increasingly less so. In my case, pink shamelessly grew on me after I got over the Valentine’s Day teddy bears associations. It now conjures images of healthy cheeks and milky strawberry candy instead.

While these individual qualities were significant, the magic happened when the two colours were together. Yellow coupled with tender pink — the least likely to draw a knife at you — clears out any traces of danger. The pair creates instead a light, saturated palette that echoes with energy and optimism. It does not cause excessive stimulation though, thanks to the gentle light-dark contrast created between the two and the softening presence of white in pink.

Thankfully, yellow and pink do not trigger immediate cultural associations as opposed to, say, plain yellow and red (a fast-food logo, anyone?), leaving ample space for my own buried experiences with the palette: a handful of lemon and strawberry Fruit-tella, children beach toys and giant cotton candy on sunny vacations.

No wonder it made me smile. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the candy store.