Psychology behind colour
What is colour, what is colour psychology and how does this affect the use of colour in fashion? By knowing this we can work out how it is used in marketing to make us buy new things. Examples of colour use in fashion can be taken from various events that people have gone to that have stimulated the mind and that interest them. To understand colour psychology, it is important to understand how we see colour and how we this can then alter the way we think about colour.
Satyendra Singh said "Color is light carried on wavelengths absorbed by the eyes that the brain converts into colors that we see. Light can be decomposed into a spectrum of six distinct colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. ….” [i]
This is the basic theory behind how a prism works, by sending light through a glass or crystal object we can see the light broken into the colours of the rainbow. This also is how our eyes work; the light is reflected off the back of our eyes which then splits into the different spectrums of light and we then see the colour that is reflected back to us because the other colour lights will have been absorbed by the object.
When looking at how the eye works we must remember all the eyes do is capture the colour, that is then relayed to the brain that then analyses the data that it was given. Depending on how our brain analysed that data, we will think and feel different things.
“An object appearing yellow absorbs all of the colors in the spectrum except the yellow light. This unabsorbed light is reflected back from the object into the eyes from where it travels to the brain where it is interpreted as yellow. The eyes are comprised of cones and rods that allow us to see color and light, respectively."[ii] -Satyendra Singh
The colour that is seen by one person can be seen differently to the person next to me because of how much light our eyes can see. This meaning that where one person see yellow someone else can be seeing anything from light grey to the yellow that one person am seeing. With us all seeing colour in different ways how can we be sure that everyone with have the same feeling towards that colour or even if they will represent that colour with the same thing as others? – see my Blog meanings behind colour, under yellow section for more info
Does colour affect moods and feelings? How does this affect what people would buy? Many different factors change why people are affected by colour in certain ways, like events, festivals or culture. In this section we will look at how colour has been represented through mood, the best way to explain this is through old sayings like "are you feeling blue?" Or "you yellow-bellied coward"
These are old sayings that are not used as much now and when we go out to buy clothing we do not think of this type of thing. It is more does this colour suit me or do I like this colour, but with this is a constantly changing view of colour which the consumer has.
“attitudes toward color change all the time. Yellow may be bold one season and tired the next. However, fashion brands spend hours forecasting these changes so they can adapt and even outpace fickle color trends. The result is that fashion leaders end up setting color trends — not reacting to them.”[iii] - https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/fashion-designers-color
This is telling us how colour forecasting is using colours that will target people’s feelings or emotions and by looking at colour psychology we are able to see how each colour may affect the way people see and feel colour.
Colour is a medium used by most designers to target an audience and make them feel a certain way from sad to happy even from angry to calm, when used in the correct way. Colour can be used in many different ways but with the many factors that have mentioned, it is hard for us to know how each person will react. But we can find out how a group of people will react to colour by doing surveys or studies upon certain age groups or cultural groups, this will then help us predict what colour trends will be best for each marketed group.
According to Pantone,
"Color is light and light is energy. Scientists have found that actual physiological changes take place in human beings when they are exposed to certain colors. Colors can stimulate, excite, depress, tranquilize, increase appetite and create a feeling of warmth or coolness. This is known as chromodynamics."[iv] - pantone
This might explain why colour has an effect on a person and how this may change their perception of the colour. How they may feel could depend on the tone or brightness of the colours that changes because of the amount of light the eyes absorbs, differing the shade or tone of the colour we see. Say if you had a light blue someone may represent this to the cold or if they see an orange flickering fire image they may free warm. This is because of our brain is associating the colour or image with a feeling or memory.
By looking at this we can start to understand how many different factors may change the way each person sees and reacts to colour, most of this is because of events that have happened in the person’s life. This is why we look at groups of people and arrange them into categories depending on what they are interested in or by events they would go to.
A study by W. Ray Crozier found "a substantial body of research suggests that the rank order of preference for hues ‐ blue, red, green, violet, orange, yellow ‐ emerges with some degree of consistency and, in particular, blue is regularly preferred to other hues. Five explanations of this trend are considered: preferences are simply conventional; blue is more neutral and less susceptible to extremes of judgement than other hues;"[v] From 1999
This study was done with both adults and children in primary school. The results were that adults had a different hue preference to kids. There were 16 studies done on adults and information collected from over 1,100 children in primary school.
Adults preference: blue, green, red, yellow
Children preference: red, yellow, blue, green
When looking at a large group of people we can see how colour may affect them in a different way, this means we can target a large audience with a small set of colours instead of a small group with many colours. By understanding the consumer's preference to colour we are better able to find out what colours will be popular and will sell. Colour forecasters use this knowledge to help them predict what will be in fashion, and when this info is sent the designer they can design outfits they know will have a chance of catching our attention. This being said, we can also see why colours have sold in other seasons or years and do studies upon them to see if the colour trends from the past will come back in style in another season. Many things can alter the way we perceive colour, and this is why designer have to forecast for the upcoming season.
In my next blog, I will be writing about colour forecasting and how this is used in the fashion industry.
[i] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/00251740610673332
[ii] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/00251740610673332
[iii] https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/fashion-designers-color
[iv] https://www.pantone.com/color-psychology-how-does-color-affect-us
[v] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/03699429910252315