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The Influence of Color – Color Psychology and the Subconscious

We live in a world of Color.

Everywhere you look color is influencing us consciously and subconsciously; naturally and synthetically: The blue sky, the green forests, the red stop sign, the green light. Color stimulates our emotions and motivates our decisions.

In this article we will investigate what some colors represent and how they can be used in your design.

Marketing and advertising employs the knowledge and practice of color psychology in its work to drive results. The main purpose of an ad is to motivate the viewer to take a course of action designated by the advertiser. Whether the call to action is to purchase a product, sign up for a contest or simply to modify the perception or mood towards a product or brand, color scheme is key to a successful campaign.

Color is applied to the shape of a logo to represent an emotion, objective, a meaning, as well as to increase brand recognition.

Colors can be presented and visualized as to signify verbs, circumstances, feelings, conditions, environments and objects to name a few.

Make sure to use color to assist in getting your message across whether you are designing a sell sheet or a logo. Remember to keep in mind the perspective of potential viewers can make a difference in their perception of the design in its entirety. Not every color will affect every individual in the same fashion. It is possible that an individual experienced something involving a particular color and may react very differently from everyone else. It is important to investigate the potential hazardous impact that a color may cause when researching and choosing color schemes. This includes cultures and countries which may have a different meaning of colors.

Red

Love, Warning, Energetic, Leadership, Ambition, Heat, Courage, Passion, Intensity, Aggression, Vibrant, Attention

Black

Power, Authority, Discipline, Confidence, Elegance, Secrecy, Sophisticated, Evil, Depth, Mystery

Blue

Peace, Cold, Water, Loyalty, Corporate, Seriousness, Sky, Authority, Security, Calmness, Productivity, Freedom, Cool

Green

Nature, fertility, Vigor, Inexperience, Patience, Growth, Money, Harmony, Refreshing, Health

Yellow

In what way do colors affect you? Have you used color in your workspace to help you be more productive?

Please share your comments!

A Colorful Guide to Understanding Color

– Vision gives us the ability to see color, but how many of us can truly explain or describe what color is or where it comes from?

This quick guide gives you a brief understanding of color, how it works, its application and how it affects your design and printing outcome.

Q. What is the definition of a color?

A. Color is the sensation produced in response to selective absorption of wavelengths from visible light. It possesses the attributes of Brightness, Colorfulness and Hue. – www.Color.org

Light is emitted by a source such as the Sun or a light bulb. Only the colors that cannot be absorbed by an object are reflected. When the light is reflected into our eyes by the object, color is the result of receptors in the eye reacting to the specific wavelength of light.

So basically, the surface properties of the object actually reflect the colors that it does not absorb. The object itself does not emit the color.

Color Application

Color plays an extremely big roll in design. For those not already aware, color is a tool that goes beyond aesthetics and delves into the subconscious; besides our visual response, we also have an emotional response to color.

If you have a black muscle car that has 550hp under the hood and one day you decide to paint the whole thing purple, do you think the perception of the car – even though it still pushes 550hp – will remain the same? Would the viewer be more interested in the color of the car than the seconds it takes to get down the quarter-mile? With color you can control perception.

Our emotions also change the perception of an object based on its color. Our age, experiences with certain colors and other triggers all affect the perception of a color at the time of viewing.

Color Communication

Color is defined by various properties and for the sake of communication, it has been given a name or number. Pink is a variation of red but it is distinctively a color in itself so a name was given to it. But how do we communicate the darkness or lightness of that pink? So can a yellow be referred to as Lemon Yellow or Canary Yellow, but to replicate it there must be a standard.

A system for coding color hues was developed in the 1900’s although today we have standards such as the Pantone Matching System® (PMS) which is widely used in the print and design industry and is the default matching system for popular graphic design software like Adobe® Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. With Pantone, a designer can designate a specific PMS color in his artwork and the printer all the way on the other side of the world can replicate the color exactly as the designer expected it to be via a Pantone swatch.

Color Vocabulary

Here you can find the definition of the most important properties of color. These will help you manipulate color and communicate efficiently.

Hue: a gradation or variety of a color. – dictionary.com

Chroma: the purity of a hue at its furthest from gray.

Saturation: the purity of a hue at is furthest from white.

Intensity: the strength or sharpness of a hue

Luminance: the amount of light reflected by the hue

Shade: a hue created by adding black

Tint: a hue created by adding white

Color Models

Color output is affected by the media it is applied to or displayed through. For web and print purposes I will only mention the Additive and Subtractive color models.

Additive: The colors that you see now on your monitor are created by adding white (light) to black. As more color is added to the black screen, the closer it is to white. Red, Green and Blue (RGB) are the additive primary colors and combined together produce 100% white. The RGB model is used for web graphics.

Subtractive: This color model is typically used for printing. By applying ink, the amount of white from the paper is reduced or subtracted. Cyan, Magenta and Yellow are the subtractive color primaries. Combining these three colors produces a muddy brownish black. To achieve a better blacks and to save ink, black (K) was added to the mix. The CMYK model is used for print.

Color Types

A color wheel is used to show the relationship between Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Complementary colors.

Primary Colors are pure colors that cannot be made by mixing any combination of colors. The are in their purest form.

Secondary Colors are created by combining two primary colors.

Tertiary Colors are made by mixing primary and secondary colors.

Complementary Colors are those positioned directly across from each other in the color wheel.

Using a color wheel can clean up your color choices specially when using complementary colors. These are basically colors that complement each other and go well together. Many designs have beautiful structure but the chosen color combinations crash and take away from its beauty.

Both web and print designs can benefit greatly from understanding color and using a color wheel. Subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter to stay tuned for the next post about Color and the Subconscious.

How would you explain color to someone who cannot see color?

Refreshing and Tasty Design Inspiration

Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother’s womb.
Jean Arp

When in need of inspiration I always turn to nature. Curves, colors, shades, reflections, beauty; You name it, she’s got it.

Here’s a healthy dose of inspiration:

Quick Fun Fruit Facts:

Avocados are commonly used as vegetables. Botanically they are fruits.
Very few fruits contain fat: avocados, olives and nuts are the only ones with significant amounts.
Cranberries, Concord Grapes and Blueberries are the only major fruits native to North America.
Strawberries, bananas, grapes, apples and oranges are Americans favorite fruits in that order (2008).
The Red Delicious is the most widely grown variety of apple in the world.
There are 3,236 people in the U.S. listed on whitepages.com with the last name ‘Orange’
(Mark Morton, ‘Gastronomica’, Fall 2010)
Grapes are about 80 percent water.

Is there something in nature that you find inspirational to your design?

The Need to Bleed

I recently asked my production manager and the graphic department manager here at Marsid M&M:

– What is the most common mistake that you find in artwork submitted by customers?

Answer: Missing Bleeds.

They also added that it is one of the biggest causes of delays in the customer receiving their order. It’s a fact that many businesses hire outside designers and when we contact the customer about the missing bleeds, it can take a matter of minutes to a matter of days to get the adjustments made by their designers.

Unfortunately our graphic department cannot always add the bleed because the file is not editable which is a whole other blog post (coming soon).
If we can add the bleed ourselves, we do it free of charge as a courtesy to our customers.

What is Bleed?

Some designs contain graphics or solid backgrounds that reach the edge of the paper as shown above. Printers require an additional stretch of these graphics or solid backgrounds, usually about 1/8th of an inch called a “Bleed” in order to guarantee the edges are not left without ink when the paper is cut.

Quick tutorials: Adding bleed to your artwork

The easiest thing to do to prevent forgetting to add bleed is to simply make a bleed guide as the first thing you do when beginning a new design. Some professional design software makes this incredibly easy to do, some you have to do manually (still pretty easy).

Adobe Illustrator:

Illustrator offers one of the easiest and most convenient ways of adding bleeds to your documents from the start. In the “New Document” dialogue, under “Bleed” enter 0.125 in to any of the columns. If the link chain is selected already, then it will populate all 4 fields with 0.125 in automatically.

As you can see below, your bleed lines are added automatically. Shown as a red frame around the artbox…

Adobe InDesign:

In the “New Document” dialogue, make sure the “more options” button is pressed and at the bottom has a “Bleed and Slug” section. In the bleed box type 0.125 in and if the the link chain is selected it will automatically add it to the other 3 boxes.

Similar to Illustrator, InDesign automatically adds the red frame around the artbox as a guide for bleeds…

Adobe Photoshop:

In the “New” dialogue window, add 0.25 to the desired finish size. For example, if your designing a postcard that has a finish size of 5 x 7, then you would enter 5.25 x 7.25.

Once you click OK, your empty canvas will appear and we will use the Rulers (View>Rulers) to use as guides to center our 5 x 7 within the 5.25 x 7.25 canvas and therefore make the bleed areas visible. Pull a guide from the ruler for each side of the canvas and drag it until it is 1/8th” inside the canvas from the edge.

Photoshop Note:

We do not suggest using Photoshop for layout and typesetting of print projects. For best results use Photoshop for image manipulation and special effects. Import or place the image or object in Illustrator or InDesign for layout and typesetting.

Photoshop is a raster design program which uses grids of pixels to compose an object. Illustrator and InDesign create vector art which is composed of lines and curves or “Paths” to create objects and therefore create sharp edges and lines for both objects and text. Vector can also be scaled to extremely large sizes without losing quality.

Bookmark Worthy: Print-Ready Design Checklist

Use the checklist to double check that every requirement is already in your artwork to avoid any issues or delays!

Brand Identity Built for Success

In all successful brands you will find fundamental characteristics that create recognition and assimilation. Comparable with that of seeing a familiar face, “Brand Identity” strengthens trust and confidence.

Color

A color scheme can express and communicate different things about a company, product or service. Color psychology plays a big roll in the viewer’s subconscious and reaction to a brand. The employment of color psychology in your brand can change a simple shape into a memorable association with an experience or emotion which may be positive or negative. Color is by far the single most important stimuli to reach the end consumer.

Intel Pentium 4 Trademark and Logo Usage Guidelines

Shape

The shape aspect of a brand also carries a psychological twist to it. Shapes can guide the viewer’s focus, arrange information and express significance. A circle for example, has a natural tendency to lead the eye to its midpoint. This gives a prevalence to the information within the circle.

A circular shape can also be used in the projection of emotions such as love and friendship :

In LG’s own words:

Face – The stylized image of a smiling face is meant to convey company friendliness and approachability.

Circle –The circle represents the globe, symbolizing the world and all of humanity, as well as youth and the future. – LG Brand Identity

Consistency

“Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.” – Norman Vincent Peale

Similar to studying for the vocabulary test at school, associating the word to its meaning and repeat, repeat, repeat until you remember the word an its meaning by reflex. Except, this is easier because what the viewer has to remember is only a shape with color; an image. The meaning is left to the viewer’s interpretation – which if your brand identity scheme was well executed – will have the impact you planned for. Keeping a consistency throughout your marketing materials is key to brand recognition and identification. Shape and color should always remain the same although some shapes are so well designed and unique that they can be in any color and still be recognized. The same can happen with a color scheme, the shape can change and the brand is recognizable just by color.

Here are a few examples:

Colorful Collection of Poster Designs for Inspiration

When promoting a band, a new product, service or simply to convey information, a full color poster will STAND OUT like capital letters in any text message.

Posters are designed to be hung on walls and many other large flat surfaces. Their large format allow for both text and images to promote events, use as an informational guide and can even be educational.

Posters can be printed on many different substrates. To name a few: vinyl for durability, art canvas to give it an “artsy” finish or even acetate for more creative works. Posters can even be mounted on different materials or framed. Foamcore and Gatorboard are frequently used and allow for the poster to stand on its own or be displayed on an easel.

Here is a collection of beautiful and colorful posters that will hopefully strike a spark in your brain and ignite a creative fire that will make your next poster design STAND OUT beyond it’s size…

[box title=”Word To The Wise” color=”#333333″]Get Inspired, Design Something Amazing and Have it Professionally Printed. Call us 516-334-1603[/box]

Amazing CMYK Inspired Designs

Printers and print designers eat, breathe and sweat CMYK.
One of the most common mistakes made when beginning a print design is to make sure the Mode is set to CMYK.

What better way to embed CMYK mode into your brain to make sure your design is correctly formatted for printing?

A showcase of Incredible Full Color CMYK Posters for reference and inspiration!

Have you had any beginner mistakes or simple “I can’t believe I did that!” mishaps in a design that you would like to share?

Share your must-see CMYK inspired designs too…

Color Consistency – Pantone Matching System

In this article I would like to talk about the Pantone Matching System (PMS) and its various uses. For those of you who are not familiar with the CMYK and PMS color processes, please visit our infocenter pages to learn more about the Pantone Matching System (PMS) or our page on CMYK and color separation.

Coca Cola®

Pantone Colors and Branding

Now, just about everyone in the world is familiar with Coca-cola print ads and the use of the color red in its branding. What most people might not realize is that the red is a specific color “tint” that is used consistently throughout Coca-Cola’s advertising, a variation between PMS 484 and 485 although no specific Pantone color is specified (CMYK values can vary as well). This “Coke Red” color is claimed as “a feature of the mark” as written in Coke’s trademark with the USPTO.

In some cases, differences between a logo’s use of color or symbols (including type) as it applies to their memorability do exist and can lead to a hefty discussion. In my opinion and in this case, Coca-cola has made great use of both color and symbol (type) to leverage “Brand Stickiness”.

Color and Purpose

Establishing a color scheme before starting a print project is key to providing the client with the most effective design possible. A logo for example, should be easily printable in either color or black ink only. Budgets and the purpose of the print can vary and will affect how the logo will be printed. When printing an NCR Form, the difference in price between full color (CMYK), PMS colors or black ink only can be quite significant. Most NCR forms are used for record keeping such as receipts, not as a marketing piece. Therefore, having a full color logo printed on an NCR Form might just be a waste of money that could in turn be used for marketing! On the other hand, having a CMYK version of your logo will come in very handy when printing full color brochures or full color postcards. Some clients might have a strict branding plan that demands the use of say a 2 PMS color logo to be printed with a full color brochure which basically renders a costly 6 color job. But hey, some budgets allow for that and as a designer or print buyer, it is your duty to consider these possibilities when establishing a brand.

Converting PMS colors to CMYK in Adobe Illustrator®

Using a Pantone Matching System Conversion Swatch is quite easy. As is using the Adobe Illustrator® swatch panel.

In Adobe Illustrator®, Pantone (PMS) colors are recognizable in the swatches panel by a white triangle in the bottom right corner which also has a black dot in the center.

– In your swatches panel, double click the PMS color and you will find that a dialogue box pops up titled “Swatch Options”.

– To change or view the corresponding CMYK values, simply click on the drop down menu labeled “Color Mode”, select CMYK and the value will be shown.

-Last but not least, click on the “Color Type” dropdown and select “Process Color”. Click the OK button. You will notice that the black dot in your swatch panel has disappeared and only the white triangle remains.

This small but significant Illustrator® function can come in very handy for designers when a PMS swatch is not available.

Have you ever had a customer supply you with artwork in PMS format to be used in a CMYK print project?

Please share your advice on how you would convert the PMS colors into CMYK value by commenting below.

Category: Color Tips