Meaning behind colour – from culture
In this blog I will tell you about meaning people have put to colour though out the years this is a list of colour meaning to help with my other blogs. colour has many different meaning depending on what your culture is, here in this blog I gone over the generic world wide teams for the colour.
Red is a very strong colour. It is a noticeable colour that is often used on caution and warning signs. It is often associated with stop or “beware”. It’s a hot colour that portrays a powerful emotion of love, passion, lust, sex, energy, blood and war.
"In many nonhuman species of vertebrates, females are attracted to red on male conspecifics. Red is also a signal of male status in many nonhuman vertebrate species, and females show a mating preference for high-status males. These red–attraction and red–status links have been found even when red is displayed on males artificially.”- Elliot Andrew (i)
This can be seen around hospitals with the red cross and valentine's day with red love hearts. Red is a good colour to use for accents that need to take notice over other colours. Red is often used in flags for nations, as it is a symbol of pride and strength.
in eastern cultures red is all so used for joy and happinees
Orange is a combination of Red and Yellow. It is also a bright and warm colour. It is represented with fire, the sun, fun, warmth and tropical images. It is considered a fun light colour that has appetizing qualities to it. As a citrus colour, orange is associated with healthy food and stimulates appetite. A darker, richer shade of orange can be associated with autumn.
Yellow is the brightest colour to the human eye.
"You can see that blue has the lowest and yellow has the highest luminance value. Yellow is actually just six percentage steps away from white. It's good advice to roughly remember the luminance values of the main hues, as it helps to work more intuitively with color." - workwithcolor.com (ii)
It is represented with youth, fun, happiness, sunshine and other light playful feelings. It is a cheerful energetic colour. Yellow is often used for children’s toys and clothes. Yellow can also be associated with being scared and, cowards. The term “yellow belly” or "having a yellow stripe down your back" is proof that yellow has a history of being used with cowardice.
Green is the colour of nature and health. It is represented with growth, nature, money, fertility and safety. Green is a relaxing colour that is easy on the eye and is said to have a healing power to it. It is often used to represent anything having to do with health. Like how fire exits are green or how a first aid box is green. Dark green is commonly associated with the military, money, finance, and banking. However, it can also be associated with being new or inexperienced as being green or a “green horn”.
Blue is a cool calming colour that shows creativity and intelligence. It is a colour of loyalty, strength, wisdom and trust. Blue has been said to have a calming effect on the psyche. Blue is not a good colour when used for food as there are few blue foods found in nature. Blue is also represented with being cold or unhappy.
“An executive for a paint company received complaints from workers in a blue office that the office was too cold. When the offices were painted a warm peach, the sweaters came off even though the temperature had not changed.” – Pantone (iii)
Blue is the colour we see most of in are daily life because Blue is the colour of the sky and the sea and is often used to represent those images.
Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Throughout history purple has been associated with royalty, nobility and prestige. As it was on for the most expensive colour to make as there is not much in nature that was a pure purple colour. If you listen to BBC radio 4's owing colour documentary they tell you how hard it was to make a synthetic purple in lab. It also symbolizes mystery, magic, power and luxury. Purple is often used to portray rich powerful kings, leaders, wizards and magicians. Purple combined with gold can be flashy and portray wealth and extravagance. Light purple can give the appearance of something that is fun and easy to do as well.
Black is often used to portray something evil, depressing, scary or even death in western civilization. It has negative imagery with it at times such as “black mail” “black list” “black hole” etc. Black is also a very powerful absents of colour that also portrays one of class elegance and wealth. Classy clothing is designed in black from the “power suit” to the “sexy black dress” to formal “black-tie attire”. Black combined with colours can have a very strong statement. Black can fit into almost every design to add contrast, type, and make the colours stand out more.
White is often associated with being pure, clean, fresh and good. a fresh snowstorm brings up images of a peaceful and pure winter scene. When used with a design using lots of negative space it gives a very clean look to it. Hollywood often portrays their characters in white as being good; the white horse, the white wizard, white magic etc. White usually is associated with being pure and almost heavenly this is why in is used for wedding dresses in Christian beliefs, it is also associated with hospitals, doctors, and heaven with it having a very clean and sterile look to it.
In eastern cultures white is use for funerals instead of black because it is seen as a mourning colour that symbolises purity and is used to show respect
(i) http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=121efc73-f493-44ef-b129-994b268d4273%40sessionmgr120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=pdh&AN=2010-15559-002
(ii) www.workwithcolor.com
(iii)https://www.pantone.com/color-psychology-how-does-color-affect-us