Colors have a significant influence on human emotions and behavior, and understanding the psychology behind color can greatly enhance the impact of your designs. In this blog post, we delve into the world of color psychology and its applications in digital design, discussing how color affects our emotions, cultural influences, and the meaning behind various colors. By understanding and applying color psychology principles in your designs, you can create powerful visual experiences that resonate with your audience and support your brand's mission. Get ready to harness the power of color psychology and elevate your design skills to new heights.
Making use of color in digital design is an excellent way to influence the way a visitor or viewer feels about a design or a website.
Any company you find online makes use of color in some way to influence their viewers, so it is important to choose colors that resonate with the mission of that business. A color, when picked correctly, can trigger the desired action from a consumer.
This blog is part of a deep-dive series on the topic of color. Before you read further I advise you to start at the beginning: Color in design: An introduction
What is color psychology?
Color psychology is how color affects our emotions and behaviors. Depending on your culture, preferences and upbringing colors can make you feel a certain way.
Why does the psychology of color selection matter?
Did you ever notice how a color can effect you?
Let's take the emotional link with the color green, it can infuse a sense of peace and is mostly associated with nature and therefore a great use in bio and organic products.
And take the color red for example, a red piece of clothing can make you feel excited and passionate, while on the other hand the color red can be a warning or represent anger.
Color influences you in a certain way, but the meaning of a color is dynamic, it needs context.
This context is either from your own perspective, experience or from your culture.
A company's perspective on picking a color:
As a company that manufactures bio-organic shampoo, we want our brand to invoke a feeling of nature and trust.
We believe that selecting the right color plays a big role in generating the right emotions.
We need to combine the core colors people associate with bio-organic and emphasize this on our website, our product and compliment this with a color that communicates trust and clarity.
In this case, and based on many products in the bio-organic industry green and white would be a perfect fit for the product.
Many companies also use skin tone colors and gold to communicate a sense of ease, trust and a premium feel.
Color and Cultural influence.
Something else to account for is that different colors also evoke different emotions depending on culture.
For example, blue is viewed as a masculine color in the west and U.S. but feminine in China.
And red in western cultures means passion, anger or danger, while representing luck and joy in the Eastern cultures.
Selecting the right color can have great impact on the reaction of your viewers and how they feel about your company or product.
It can inspire trust or elicit a feeling of calmness and excitement.
That's why every color should be picked according to the message you want to communicate so you are able to strategically contribute to the overall goal of the design at hand.
What does each color represent?
Looking for an overview of what all the colors are mostly associated with? Here you find a list of the most used colors and what they represent.
All colors have positive associations and negative associations.
This makes sense, as most of the beliefs we have around color are either from personal experience, specific cultures or educated by law.
But nature has it's own language and way with color so there are some fundamental truths.
Red
The color red is mostly associated with evoking strong or passionate emotions. Love, comfort, confidence, warmth, excitement and passion are some of the more positive emotions connected to this color.
Anger and danger are some of the negative feelings induced by the color red.
Positive emotional response
warmth
excitement
enthusiasm
Negative emotional response
Aggressiveness
Danger
Impatience
Dominant
Green
Green carries many connotations and connections.
While generally associated with nature, it also is connected with soothing, calming and health-giving feelings.
Green can also be associated with money, jealousy, good luck and fertility.
Positive emotional response
rejuvenation
natural
lively
freedom
Negative emotional response
rot
jealousy
boredom
Blue
Blue is viewed as a calming and serene color.
It’s often considered stable and non-threatening and can promote a tranquil, peaceful emotion.
Blue is also connected with feelings of icy distance and sadness.
Positive emotional response
logic
intellect
trust
stability
loyalty
Negative emotional response
conservative
cold
distant
Yellow
Yellows are generally cheerful and warm colors, but have also been found to induce feelings of frustration and anger.
Yellow is the most eye-catching of colors, so it’s often used to draw attention on traffic signs or capture the viewer’s eye in an advertisement.
Positive emotional response
happiness
confidence
lust for life
Negative emotional response
annoying
overstimulating
angst
Orange
Orange is typically correlated with excitement, enthusiasm and warmth.
It’s an energetic color that tends to draw attention, which is why it’s often used on traffic signs.
Citrus fruits and the refreshing sensation of beauty are also commonly linked with the color orange.
Positive emotional response
friendly
playful
open-hearted
Negative emotional response
cheap
frivolous
childish
Pink
Pink is associated with romance and love, as is clearly seen on most affectionately themed chocolates and cards doled out around Valentine’s Day.
Pink also evokes a certain sense of ease in viewers.
Culturally, many categorize pink as a feminine color and therefore think of kindness, softness and compassion.
Positive emotional response
energizing
calming
lovely
cheerful
Negative emotional response
weak
needy
helpless
Purple
Purple is often described as mysterious, imaginative and spiritual.
It’s also generally associated with wealth and royalty, because back in the day many kings would wear purple clothing.
Positive emotional response
creativity
luxury
comfort
royalty
Negative emotional response
Introversion
diversification
inferiority
White
Culturally, white has long been associated with cleanliness, innocence and purity.
This is why the bride classically wears a white wedding dress.
On the flip side, it can also be viewed as cold, sterile or bland, so it’s important to use white appropriately.
Positive emotional response
peace
cleanliness
clarity
Negative emotional response
sterile
cold
indifferent
Black
Used often in fashion for a slimming effect, black is normally a color associated with death or fear.
Coming from Halloween, movie culture and funerals.
These days, in User Interface design, from my perspective black and grey shades are associated with not blinding myself and my users.
Positive emotional response
elegance
authority
glamourous
Negative emotional response
darkness
threatening
intimidating
Consider your colors wisely
Using color in design is way more than just choosing some colors that seem to fit together.
Having a deep understanding of the psychology behind each color and knowing how to implement this is one of the fundamental skills of design.
Next time when you are designing a brand system or website, take the meaning of each color into account and let it represent the language your client or business wants to communicate.
(Re) sources
If you want to know more about the psychology of color, here are the resources I used to learn the psychology of color:
