J08

DESIGN & COLOR

Color is a fascinating idea. One's mind can tangle into endless thoughts if they start to dwell on it for too long. It is essential to a sundry of things we experience daily - one of these being design. Color is used to set a hierarchy. With color a designer can guide the eye and represent certain things in our culture. Color is so necessary that even it's absence draws attention. Constantly we find that color can influence our moods and feelings; color is powerful. We use color in branding and marketing and find its use to be a factor of success. Color is recognizable and memorable. As humans we seek it out. The relationship between design and color is one not to be ignored.

sources:


1 | This infographic displays the cultural significance of different colors in different cultures. While looking through information on this topic I never realized how varying our meanings of color are throughout the world. For example, in Eastern culture red is worn by brides but in the Western culture red is associated with anger, blood and danger.

2 | I explored the realm of gender associations with color and stumbled upon this infographic displaying a study on the topic. This study found that both genders love blue and hate orange and brown. It discussed how men entirely dislike purple and looked at the detailed perception of color from women compared to men's generalization of color. This information is pretty interesting and could be taken into account when marketing, branding and designing for certain audiences and purposes.

3 | I found this website that lets you explore color interactions first hand. Josef Albers, a Bauhaus student, studied this topic.

4 | This book argues that chromophobia is starting to take over Western culture. I have never heard of this fear before and it would certainly be interesting to try and understand how this could fit in with the relationship between design and color.

5 | This video is not necessarily about color but it displays color relationships through animation. One could also experience how color affects emotions while watching this short.