Colour Meaning

RED – For Danger, Passion, Excitement & Energy

Meanings: Red  is the colour associates with of fire, danger, and blood on one hand; and love, sexuality and passion on the other. It is a bold, energetic and lively color that can symbolize passion, strength, confidence and power.

Tips for use: Red often communicates strength, confidence, and power and is a highly visible color.

MATCHDAY! is a poster about Manchester United

This is an example of how red is used in the poster to show the power and strength of Manchester United. To me, red is the colour that is too attractive. With the use of red, from far, a person can notice it.  In most of my design, I tend not to use red a lot as I feel that it might be overpowering my design, unless it is intentional.

Orange – Fresh, Youthful, Creative & Adventurous

Meanings: Orange communicates activity and energy.  And of course it’s hard not to go past orange as the color of, oranges, and all their vitamin c byproducts, which immediately makes orange feel fresh and healthy. Orange can therefore tap into associations of youthfulness, creativity and adventure. And it can be associated with the harvest or autumn season.

Tips for use: As orange is associated with fun and vibrancy is well suited to youthful, energetic brands and designs and best avoided for luxury, traditional or serious brands.

Feeding the Self

An example of how orange is used in Feeding the Self, that teaches African youths to be self-sustainable with veggie and herb gardens. Here, orange conveys youthfulness, as well as the fresh and healthy feeling associated with gardens.

Yellow – Optimistic, Cheerful, Playful & Happy

Meanings: Yellow is the color of sunshine which puts a smile on the dial. It is the most visible color from a distance (which is why it’s used for street signs) and communicates cheerfulness, friendliness, joy and energy. However, yellow is also a cautionary color used in life vests, police cordoning tape and hazardous areas.

Tips for use: Pure/bright yellow does a great job of attracting attention, but can be visually disturbing or even hard to see (for instance, white text against a bright yellow background or vice versa) if not used with care.

The Citrus Brothers by Griselda Marti

Image above is a branding stationery for the illusionist group The Citrus Brothers. The yellow, like the illusionists, is cheerful, entertaining and smile-inducin.

Green – Natural, Vitality, Prestige & Wealth

Meanings: Green has two very common meanings; one being nature and the environment, and the other being finance and wealth. When it comes to nature, green represents plant life and growth and is consequently used to convey being ‘green’ in the environmental, sustainable, organic, natural sense of the word. And of course green is, as the saying goes, ‘the color of money’ (US money, that is) and therefore associated with wealth and stability

Tips for use: Pick your shade of green carefully as brighter, lighter greens indicate growth, vitality and renewal; while darker, richer greens represent prestige, wealth and abundance.

Streat HelsinkiStreat Helsinki by Kokoro & Moi

This is a branding by Kokoro & Moi. It uses green to promote street food festival, the fluorescent green communicates both the neon lights of Asia’s night markets as well as the fresh and experimental food being served up.

Blue – Communicative, Trustworthy, Calming & Depressed

Meanings: Blue is the most universally preferred color, perhaps for its very versatile qualities. It is a favorite color for companies that wish to convey reliability, trustworthiness and communication (such as Facebook and Twitter).  It is also appreciated for it’s calming and harmonious qualities being associated with the sea and sky. However, being associated with the emotional feeling of being ‘blue’ it is also used to express sadness or depression.

Tips for use: Blue shows corporate and dependable, to calming and tranquil, to feeling down in the dumps. Hence choose your shade wisely to avoid a popular color in the market segment

Wo Hing General StoreWo Hing General Store by Manual Creative

The brand identity for Wo Hing General Store draws on a rich visual language that combines vibrant blue with light blue. It pays homage to the bright lights of Asia while portraying a calmer space and atmosphere.

Purple – Royalty, Majesty, Spiritual & Mysterious

Meanings: Purple traditionally associated with royalty, majesty or nobility as well as having a spiritual or mysterious quality. Darker shades often represent luxury or opulence while lighter lavender shades are quite feminine, sentimental and even nostalgic.

Tips for use: Purple is best used for targeting a female audience as research suggests that while women list purple as a top-tier color, it doesn’t even rank for men. Overall, purple is not a common color for branding and in fact Cadbury is the only purple brand in the Forbes list of the 100 most valuable brands from 2014.

Bella CasaBella Casa by Jack Muldowny

The business card for Louisville interior design company Bella Casa pays homage to the city’s Victorian homes and French influence. These feminine, nostalgic and sentimental attributes are visually communicated through the choice of purple.

Pink – Feminine, Sentimental, Romantic & Exciting

Meanings: Pink has long been (stereotypically) associated with females and is often viewed as being ‘girly.’ However, like all colors, pink is quite diverse and the level of intensity can impact its meaning. Pale pink, often marketed as the official color of little girls, represents sweetness while dusty pink can be more sentimental and light pink more romantic. At the other end of the scale, hot pink indicates youthfulness, energy, fun and excitement.

Tips for use: Identify the mood and feeling you want to muster and choose your pink accordingly.

Eleanor FinchEleanor Finch by Studio Lane

Sam Lane specifically chose light, rosy pink for photographer Eleanor Finch’s business cards in order to target a primarily female audience. However, the black imagery and simple type keeps this modern without being ‘girly.’

Black – Sophisticated, Formal, Luxurious & Sorrowful

Meanings:  Black is serious colour. It represents power, luxury, sophistication and exclusivity on one hand; and death, evil and mystery on the other. From formality to mourning to power, black is bold, classic and not to be fooled with.

Tips for use: Contrast a bright color against black; use gold foil for touch of luxe; or combine it with white for a bold and simple statement.

SWG StudioSWG_Studio by SWG_Studio

SWG_Studio revitalized their corporate branding with predominantly black stationery with geometric interlocking lines and shapes. The overall look is formal, professional and serious.

White – Purity, Simplicity, Innocence & Minimalism

Meanings: White represents simplicity, purity, innocence and perfection. A brand that has used white to convey its brand message to perfection it would be Apple – white represents the simplicity of the products in both their form and function. White also comes with a starkness or sterility about it, which is often used be designers to convey a minimalist aesthetic and clean, modern quality.

Tips for use: It is difficult to inject personality into a brand when using white, so making sure the brand personality is about simplicity, purity, and transparency.

Thomas Wightman by Thomas Wightman

Designer Thomas Wightman created this identity system to portray his personal design style. Nearly all white, with a black + symbol for his first initial, the branding is simple, straightforward and minimalist.

Multicolor – Variety

Meanings: Diverse color generally indicates variety – be it representative of people, countries, or offerings.

Tips for use: Pay attention to the choice of colours, how it will work together both printed and digitally as the end result may vary with different screens and different printers.

Hello RubyHello Ruby by Kokoro & Moi

Kokoro & Moi love producing brightly colored visual identities and Hello Rubyis no exception. It celebrates all the realms of computing through the big imagination of a small girl. Bold and playful colors express optimism, curiosity and variety – just some of the many attributes of computing.

 

In conclusion, I though that pink, white and multicolours would suit my personality the best. Pink because it has been my favourite colour since I was a kid, and I like Barbie dolls & princess. As I grow up, I tend to appreciate white colours like the pureness of it and the innocence. And it looks clean to my eyes. And lastly, multicolour is because it can help to attracts someone's attention and, I feel like, the play of colours would definitely enhance my visual language.

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