COLOR PSYCHOLOGY IN DESIGN

By Barbara S. K. Wong

Color expresses something by itself. Let’s say I have to paint an autumn landscape
with yellow leaves on the trees. If I see it as a symphony in yellow, does it matter whether
the yellow that I use is the same as the yellow of the leaves? No it doesn’t.
--------- Van Gogh

Van Gogh discovered that color has power of expressing emotion, although Paul Gauguin
was the first to recognize it, they both use color to express their emotions radically and
successfully. Artists use color to express their feelings and emotion and not only by
observing and just paint what it is looked like. Because color exists in the mind and it can
create subjective and objective impression. Color can stimulate our thoughts and
emotions and we response to different colors in different ways since human being
responses to color biologically and psychologically. In the following, I will discuss what
color psychology is and how it affects us in culture and associations, its relation to our
senses, as well as how these influents to our choice of colors so as to help us in using it
design and marketing.

What is Color Psychology?

As we know that in physical world, there are no colors. Colors are only light waves of
different wavelengths that reflected from the objects. Our human eyes have the ability to
distinguish among hundreds of such bands of wavelengths as they are received by the
sensory cells (cones) of the retina. Therefore seeing colors is our own perception and it is
a subjective experience. In other words, perception of colors is affected by factors such as
personality, mood, emotion, age and gender, as well as our social and cultural background.
That is why different individual perceive color in a different way.

Color psychology is a field of study devoted to analyzing the effect of color on human
behavior and feeling. Study of the psychology of color is complicated by the different
symbolic meanings of colors in different culture. For example, in western culture bride
wears white to signify pure and innocent; whereas in the eastern culture, for example
China, brides wear red for it represents happiness and fortunate.

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Psychological Effects of Colors

According to Carl Jung, deep down in human’s psyche is collective unconscious where
there are content of archetypes --- the original pattern or model from which other things of
the same kind are made. Those are the foundation images that are developed and formed
from our ancestors through thousands of years. Color is a part of our psychological and
biological heritage therefore sometimes we response to color in certain way, for example,
we think that red is hot and blue is cool, these are found to be universal responses.

But color is also quite personal since each individual has their own personality and their
preferences of color are diverse. As Jung also mentioned about the extravert and introvert
type of personality and it is found that these types of personality have dissimilar color
preferences: the extraverted personality type has a greater tendency toward more
intensive stimulation, so they are enjoyed more in colourful surroundings, whiles
introverted personality type of people are more favour lower degree of stimulation, and
lower intensity of color are preferred.

Color can also affected by culture and social trend, which means the meaning of color is
not the same across different cultures and period of time. Since we are living in different
societies and the meanings of colors are formed by myth, value, belief, religion, social
custom, as well as geographical and historical background of that society. For instance,
green has religion significant in Islam and the cloak of the prophet was green so it is also a
symbol of hope. But in China, the proverb ‘wearing green hat’ means the husband has an
unfaithful wife. Moreover, culture also influences the preferences of color, for example, the
Japanese like gentle colors of water, sky and wood; whereas the Mexican people prefer
vivid color theme.

On the other hand, the preferences of color also changes through time. Color changes are
said to reflect the Zeitgeist --- the spirit of the time, people are tend to prefer certain color
according to the economic, social change, and mood of that particular time. For example
in the 1960s, psychedelic colors were popular since it echoed the optimistic spirit of that
era; while in the war time and in time of regression, people tends to wear low intensity
colors which mirrors the gloomy mood of the difficult years.

Color Association

Colour symbolism is a learned behaviour but it has associative power that it affects
how we perceive a colour and the mood or emotion that produced by it, for
example, red can conveys excitement and romantic mood, green always help
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promote relaxation, and brown is the cozy colour that is always create stable and
comfortable atmosphere. Given that colour symbolism is learned, some colours
can convey universal messages while others may vary by ethnicity, cultural, or
socioeconomic background.

As colour symbolism is playing an important part of human life, understanding the

symbolism of color is vital in various fields, such as fashion, products, advertising
and interior. It can help the designers and marketers to produce certain mood and
conveying messages to the consumers.

(Attached are the colour attribute of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white,
black and grey)

Colour and Senses

Color is also found considerably affect our other senses --- hear, taste, smell and touch,
etc. in Gestalt psychology the entire organism is looked upon as a unity that the centres for
processing sensory information are linked to each other, leading to chain of reactions.
Here are some examples to show how color affects to other senses:

• Perception of Temperature
The color of a room will affect the perception of temperature. In an experiment a
group of people was placed in a red-orange painted room for some time and the other
group of people were in a blue-green painted room, the temperature of the two rooms
were the same. It was found that most people in the red-orange room felt warm and the
people in the blue-green room felt cooler. Therefore it is useful in interior design where the
location and use of energy is also being considered. For example, it can use cool tone in
room that is facing west so as to make the occupant fee s cooler and it can also a way of
saving energy.

• Perception of Noise and Sound

Color also has an effect on the perception of noise and sound. Studies showed that the
bright warm colors are associated with loudness and the opposite for cool colors. It may
be because people mentally connect a loud red with one of high saturation and the high
saturated hues are usually considered to be high-pitched and shrill sounds. These findings
are particularly useful in interior decoration for different settings such as clubs and
restaurants.

• Association of Odour and Taste

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Some studies also found that colors are associated with smell and taste. For instance,
pink is associated with sweetish, yellow is sour, orange is strong, and green is sour and
juicy. It is also found that pink, lavender, pale yellow and green have pleasant smell.
Hence, we can find most candies are in pink packaging. On the other hand, blue is found
to be an appetite suppressant so it is avoid using it in restaurant or food packaging.
However, it is a good choice to use for weight-loss plan, for example, blue plate or blue
light in refrigerator will definitely work.

Color Psychology in Commercial Areas

As we know that color psychology has great influence on how we see colors and the
likeliness of colors. Moreover, colors can also influence the subjective appreciation of the
quality of goods or the perception of an advertising message. Hence designers and
marketers can use color psychology to add value to the products and services and to
increase sales. There are numerous examples that color psychology can be applied to
interior, product, fashion and textiles design in numbers of ways that achieve favourable
result. The followings are two examples to show how colour psychology works in design
and marketing:

In Product and Packaging Design

Color has found to have significant impact on product attribute, and it plays a larger role in
the success of a product than the performance of the product itself. If the color is
unappealing to the customers, it would fail miserably in the market even though it performs
very well. It is particularly true in food and beverage products where the taste and favour
are important. As mentioned about, color will affect our perception of taste and smell, so it
is evident that deep brown or red is more preferable in coffee beam packaging because
these colors associated with richness and strong flavour.

In Interior Design
In interior design, color also plays an important role. Color can define space, indicate
function, suggest temperature, influence moods and project personality in the environment.
For instance, light value colours bring happiness and suggest eternal love and peace, it
can be used in active room to lift up spirit and also reduce stress.

Moreover, color symbolism can also help to create corporate image in its logos, stationary,
and corporate offices. In corporate offices, the creation of good company-client is
important and the use of colors, such as warmer hues that can display a friendly and
personable manner especially use it in the reception area are good choice to build
goodwill.

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Conclusion

We have learnt that colour psychology has a larger part to play in design and
marketing. However, we should always bear in mind that colour marketing is not a
simple process that colour conveys different messages to different groups of
people. We should always take precaution when using colours in different settings.
To comprehend the meaning of colours and its emotional influence is critical to
determine the success of a products or design.

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Author
Barbara Wong is founder and CEO of shine-21.com, a design and branding
consultancy firm base in Hong Kong which provide consulting, creative, design,
forecasting and marketing services for consumer product and service companies.

Published on January 15, 2009

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