Perception is reality ...
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Research suggests that color may be responsible for more than half of a persons initial subconscious response to a new environment. With such power to trigger immediate impact, one of the surprises of the web is that publishers do not pay more attention to color.
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Color perception in 'western cultures' ...
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| Red — is associated with urgency, love, heat, passion and danger. The connection with speed and quick decision making, makes red a common choice for transactional websites. The sense of urgency also makes red a strong highlight color if not overused.
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| Orange — is a vibrant color that generates feelings of warmth and playfulness. Like red and yellow, it grabs attention and its overuse can create visual confusion. Deeper 'gold' shades convey prestige and expense.
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| Yellow — draws our eyes first, and implies warmth, light, happiness and summer. It can also convey cowardice and weakness and in the back-lit environment of the web 'flares' and distracts.
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| Green — is associated with nature, abundance, growth and the environment. Darker colors are conservative and more vibrant shades are appealing to a younger audience. Green has the most 'web safe' shades of any color.
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| Blue — is the most conservative color, seen as serious and conscientious, generating emotions of dignity, trust and reliability, however in some cases it may imply melancholy and coldness. Popular for finance, insurance and technology websites.
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| Purple — resonates most strongly with an older audience, creating feelings of intelligence, dignity, spirituality and courage. Commonly used for health and medical websites.
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| White — is clean, pure and empty. Generating feelings of lightness, youthfulness, mildness and cleanliness. In certain cases, it may be austere and clinical. A common background color on the web and in publishing generally.
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| Black — sophisticated, elegant, strong and seductive, black may also stimulate feelings of evil and death. Black is the most 'readable' text color, especially in contrast with a white background.
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| Grey — can be elegant and subtle, however it may also be drab, depressing and bland. A good neutral color to expose other color elements, grey that represents 'silver' online may also imply prestige and simple elegance.
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Cultural variations in color perception.
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The generalized color observations contained above, apply only to western cultures (North America, United Kingdom, Australia and similar nations) and still vary substantially within demographics including age, sex and socio-economic group.
Across cultures the variation is even more dramatic. For example, yellow is sacred in China, signifies sadness in Greece and jealousy in France. White is the color of death in China and red is the color of marriage. Tropical cultures have a proclivity for warmer colors and colder countries often demonstrate preferences for blues, greens and darker shades. Blue is the only 'safe' color in all cultures, however it is not always an inspiring choice.
Time spent studying the preferences and impressions of your target demographic is likely to result in strong communication benefits. Lets take a brief look at how color preference changes with age in our sections on color preferences.
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