The Meaning Behind Colors
The power of color is important in design. The power of color has the ability to influence mood, emotion, and perception. It can influence the way someone thinks and weather or not to take action. “A study from the university of Winnipeg, titled “Impact of Color on Marketing” found that peoples initial judgements about products were largely based on color. This means that color is not just an artistic choice but also a very important business decision. It can affect everything from consumer perceptions about a brand to product sales” (Kliever)
Blue. Blue always reminds me of relaxation because it is the color of the ocean. Turns out, blue represents tranquility, security, integrity, peace, loyalty trust, cleanliness and intelligence.
In branding, blue is used to communicate trustworthiness, security, and stability. Navy or dark blue is oftentimes used because it is perceived to have a serious conservative and professional qualities.
On the negative side, it could mean coldness, fear, masculinity sadness and depression
Turquoise is the color of spirituality, healing, protection and sophistication.
Negatives of turquoise are also envy and femininity
Green evokes feelings of freshness, growth, environment, new, money, fertility, healing, earth
Negatives of green are envy, jealousy, and guilt. It often communicates an all natural quality and dark green represents wealth and stability.
In branding, brands that prefer to send a message of organic, environmentally friendly, healthy natural and sustainable will use brown and green.
Yellow represents bright, sunny, energetic, warm, happy, perky, joy, friendliness, intellect. In some eastern and asian cultures yellow is associated with royalty and high rank. In Africa and latin America, yellow is the tradition color of mourning.
In branding, pure/ bright yellow will get people’s attention but can sometimes be visually disturbing or hard to see (yellow background with white text)
Negatives of yellow are irresponsible and unstable, illness and quarantine
Purple means royalty, nobility, spirituality, luxury, ambition and wealth. On the negative side it could mean mystery and moodiness
Pink (my favorite color) means healthy, happy, feminine, sweet, compassion, playful. Negatives mean weak, femininity, and immaturity.
Red gives the feelings of love, passion, energy, power, strength, heat, desire. On the negative side, it means danger, warning and action. In branding red often communicated strength, confidence and power. It is a highly visible color.
Orange means courage, confidence, friendliness and success, activity, energy and optimism. It is also associated with the harvest or autumn season. In japan, orange is the symbol of love. In branding orange oftentimes represents youthfulness and creativity. Gold, which is a type of orange or yellow is a symbol of luxury or high quality.
Negatives means ignorance and sluggishness
Brown means friendly, earth, outdoors, longevity, conservative. Negatives means dogmatic
Tan means dependable, flexible, crisp, conservative. Negatives means dull orange and conservative. Negatives are dull boring and conservative.
Gold means wealth, wisdom, prosperity, valuable, tradition luxury and high quality. Negatives are egotistical, self righteous
Silver means glamorous, high tech and graceful. Negatives are indecisive, dull, non committal
Pantone white is the color of goodness, innocence, purity fresh easy and clean. Negatives mean emptiness, pristine, isolation
Pantone gray means security, reliability, intelligence, and negatives are gloomy, sad and conservative
Black means protection, elegance, dramatic, classy, formality and negatives are death, evil and mystery
The basics of color theory will state that there are primary and secondary colors on the color wheel. The primary colors are red, yellow and blue. Secondary colors are any colors that can be mixed with these primary colors to create a different hue (orange, green and violet). These colors are always formed by mixing the primary colors red yellow and blue. Mix those together and you’ll get a third level of colors, which are tertiary colors.
Lastly, there are tertiary colors. These colors are what i like to call in between colors, which are yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green and yellow-green. These are the colors formed by mixing the primary and secondary colors.
Analogous colors are any three colors on the color wheel which are next to each other, such as yellow orange, orange, and red orange.
Complementary colors are any two colors that are opposite of each other, such as purple and green. These opposing colors provide a perfect amount of contrast and oftentimes, look great paired together.
All printers use CMYK color. The opposed color model is RGB, which means the colors that yo use on your computer screen or TV. RBG is the small dots on the color screen which are red green and blue light that combine to form visible colors. RGB color space uses a wider color spectrum than CMYK. A lot of designers will create a project using RGB and then convert in to CMYK before printing. There is a third form of color which is called canva, which is oftentimes found on the adobe creative suite. This type of color has a # before it and has a hex code which is a six digit combination of numbers and letters.
A designer will often use different terms for different types of colors when working on design projects.
Hue: hue stands for “color” and traditionally refers to one of the 12 colors on the color wheel.
Shade: shade means a hue that has been darkened with black
Tone: a hue dulled with grey
Tint: a hue lightened with white
Saturation: refers to the intensity and purity of the color. The closer a hue get to grey, the more desaturated it is.
Value: value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color
Monochromatic: various shades, tints or hues of one color. For example, multiple shades of blue varying from light to dark.
Analogous: these hues are side by side on the color wheel and is oftentimes versatile and easy to apply to design projects
Complementary: complementary colors and opposite of each other on the color wheel, such as blue and green. It could also mean high contrast or high intensity but in a way that is balanced and harmonious.
Color theory is a big part of what makes designing so interesting and fun.
Sources:
https://www.canva.com/learn/color-theory/
https://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory
