Zelanski and Fisher’s “The Psychological Effects of Color” discusses how color can influence human behavior and emotion and can have both physiological and psychological effects on people.
Warm colors like reds, oranges, and yellows tend to increase excitement, increase blood pressure, and stimulate appetite, (I think of fast food logos).
Cool colors like blue and green give off a calm vibe and promote relaxation. The authors mention that cool colors make us think of trees and water. When I think of cool colors, I think of a blue sky on a really nice day, which has a seemingly calming effect. This hue of green in the Starbucks logo gives the logo a fresh and calm feel.
I found it really interesting that “when colors are not seen in isolation, their “temperature” will be affected by that of the colors around them.” The accompanying photo of the sitting room by David Hicks really helps illustrate this effect.
I think Bonnaroo’s website is a great example of balancing warm and cool colors, as well as using bright and energetic colors to stimulate visual interest. The background gradient from cool to warm colors has a harmonizing, stimulating effect, and a creative feel.
I had never heard of chromotherapy, or “healing with colors,” but I think it’s so cool. I didn’t know colors had so much of a physical effect on our bodies. Who knew the color orange could stimulate the immune system? Or that blue could affect the throat or thyroid gland? Crazy!
In the study by Ertel, kids in a yellow, yellow-green, orange, or light blue classroom had their IQ shoot up 12 points, while the IQ scores of kids in white, brown, or black painted rooms dropped. Knowing this gives picking a paint color for a room in my home some extra weight. I already have trouble making decisions when the options are endless but this makes the decision that much more difficult!
I found the Luscher Color Test really interesting. I didn’t realize you could tell so much about someone’s personality based on their color preferences alone. I also found the following associations between emotions and color by Suzy Chiazzari to be a helpful tool when thinking about designing with color in the future:
Red: vitality, strength, warmth, sensuality, assertion, anger, impatience
Pink: calmness, nurturance, kindness, unselfish love
Orange/peach: joy, security, creativity, stimulation
Yellow: happiness, mental stimulation, optimism, fear
Green: harmony, relaxation, peace, calmness, sincerity, contentment, generosity
Turquoise: mental calmness, concentration, confidence, refreshment
Blue: peace, spaciousness, hope, faith, flexibility, acceptance
Indigo/violet: spirituality, intuition, inspiration, contemplation, purification
White: peace, purification, isolation, spaciousness
Black: femininity, protection, restriction
Gray: independence, separation, loneliness, self-criticism
Silver: change, balance, femininity, sensitivity
Gold: wisdom, abundance, idealism
Brown: nurturance, earthiness, retreat, narrow-mindedness
I had never heard of local or expressionistic color before reading this piece. Local color is “the color that something appears from nearby when viewed under average lighting conditions,” while expressionistic color on the other hand, expresses “an emotional rather than a visual truth.”
This reading taught me so much about color I didn’t know and I’m excited to be able to apply this information in the future.
I had also never heard of Shirley Cards until reading the NPR article by Mandalit Del Barco. Shirley cards were Kodak’s “normal” for calibrating skin tones back in the day, but they perpetuated racism. Shirley was a white model from the 1950s and her white skin tone was used as the “standard” to set the color balance on Kodak devices globally.
Kodak didn’t care if her skin tone looked like everyone else’s. This was really problematic for people with darker skin tones because the color balance wasn’t being set properly for their skin. According to the video, things didn’t change until wood, furniture, and chocolate companies complained about not being able to properly color balance their products. Only when Kodak decided it could be a bump in profits did they finally make a change. This honestly disgusts me.
