About color and psychology in visual messaging

1. About Color
…and graphic design

2. Color Impacts Mood & Meaning
• Red: Action, aggression/
assertiveness/danger
• Yellow: Demands attention;
high readability
• Green: Symbol of health &
prosperity
• Blue: Tranquility, stability
• Black: Sophistication
• Orange: Evokes “edibility”
• Purple: Risk-taking

3. American Color Associations
Color
General
Appearance
Mental
Associations
Direct
Associations
Objective
Associations
Subjective
Impressions
Red
brilliant,
intense,opaque,dry
Hot, fire,
heat, blood
danger,
Christmas, 4th
of July,
Valentine's
Day, Mother's
Day, flag
passionate,
exciting active
intensity,
rage,
fierceness
Orange
bright, luminous,
glowing
Warm,
metallic,
autumnal
Halloween,
Thanksgiving
jovial, lively,
energetic,
forceful
hilarity,
exuberance,
satiety
Yellow
sunny,
incandescent,
radiant
sunlight caution
cheerful,
inspiring, vital,
celestial
high spirit,
health
Green clear, moist
cool, nature,
water
clear, St.
Patrick's Day
quieting,
refreshing,
peaceful
ghastliness,
disease,
terror, guilt
Blue transparent, wet
cold, sky,
water, ice
service, flag
subduing,
melancholy,
contemplative,
sober
gloom,
fearfulness,
furtiveness
Purple
deep, soft,
atmospheric
cool, mist,
darkness,
shadow
mourning,
Easter
dignified,
pompous,
mournful,
mystic
loneliness,
desperation
White spatial - light cool, snow
cleanliness,
Mother's Day,
flag
pure, clean,
frank, youthful
brightness of
spirit,
normality
Black spatial - dark
neutral,
night,
emptiness
mourning
funeral,
ominous,
deadly,
depressing
negation of
spirit, death

6. WHITE

18. Blue Period.
Corporate advertisers love blue.
USA Today says, ”The ad
business is feeling blue—
literally.”
Blue is the USA's favorite color
The use of blue gets consumers to
open up to the message.
Blue suggests upscale elegance.
Blue also represents technology
and the future.
Blue Period.

34. Basic Elements of “Color
Theory”
Hue
Saturation
Tints/Tones/Shades
Warmth vs. Coolness
Color Adjacency (Analogous Colors)
Complementary Colors
Monochromatic design

35. Saturation
• Hue = basic color, typically one of the rainbow (red, blue,
green, yellow, orange, violet)
• Saturation refers to the brightness or dullness of a hue
• At its highest level of intensity, a hue is said to be purely
saturated.
• Mixed with black, white, or especially gray, the fully
saturated hue becomes dull in various degrees.
 The neutral colors dull the intensity or saturation
because they dilute the hue.
 A color mixed with gray is called a tone

36. Definitions
• A hue mixed with black is a shade.
• A hue mixed with white is a tint.
• A saturated color will dominate (attract attention) when
placed alongside duller tones.
• A saturated hue has the advantage of being noticed first
when surrounded by hues of lower saturation.

37. Color
• Additive color system
 Adding light, using the
3 primaries green, red,
and blue.
 Primaries are also called the
additive primaries because,
when added together in the
natural world, they create white
light.

39. Color
• When working with light in screen-
based media, the three primaries
are red, green, and blue (RGB).

40. Color
• The subtractive color model
is built on the subtraction of light
(typically printed with black onto a
reflective surface).
The subtractive primary colors in pigment
are yellow, red, and blue.
 In printing, yellow, magenta, and
cyan are the colors of the process
inks used for process color
reproduction.
 A fourth color, black, is added to
increase contrast.
 Pigment: a natural color or hue mixed
for application on paper or other
material (eg.paint, ink, dye)

41. Color
• Designers should have a basic awareness of color print
production, ink mixtures, and screen “safe” colors—and their
problems.
• Basic color knowledge should include awareness of the
printing primaries of CMYK, the process of layering dots of
ink to produce color, and the Pantone™ color system of ink
selection.
• The Pantone color system is a standardized color
matching set of inks used in printing processes.
• Designers should be aware that colors on the web can be
unstable; therefore a palette of 256 “web-safe” colors was
standardized.
Pantone Matching System: Swatch

42. Value
• Value refers to the level of luminosity—
lightness or darkness—of a color, such as light
blue or dark red.
• To adjust the value of a hue, two neutral colors
are employed: pure black and white.
• Black is the darkest value and white is the
lightest.
• Value contrast is most useful for purposes of
differentiating shapes. The value contrast most
clearly differentiates the figure from the ground.
• Hue contrasts alone have less impact and
therefore may not be as effective for
differentiating between the figure and ground
images or between elements of a single
composition

45. The Color Wheel
Presents a logically arranged
sequence of pure hues.
A range of colors generated by
mixing three beams of light.
The 3 beams combined produce
white light and are called
primary colors (red, green, and
blue).
Isaac Newton developed the first
color wheel in 1666.
Since then artists have studied
numerous variations of this
concept.

54. Complements vibrate
such as red text on a blue background,

55. Combinations
by name

56. Color theory | Check it out
• http://www.worqx.com/color/combinations.htm

57. Color Harmony
How color behaves in
relation to other
colors is a complex
area of color theory.
Helps create unity in
design.

60. Harmony Tips
• Colors harmonize best if
they are similar in
value--all tones, all
shades, or all tints.
• Complementary colors
blend best with the use
of intervals (graduated
shades/tones/tints
forming a progression
toward the opposite
color.
• You can use semi-
transparencies and
layering to better
harmonize awkward
color combos.

61. Color Schemes

69. Color Schemes: Check it out
• ADOBE color themes: ADOBE Kuler
• https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/