Properties and Uses of Color in Career Pathways

1. color Properties and Uses of Color in Career Pathways Georgia CTAE Resource Network, January 2010 Written by Brittany Norman and Dr. Frank B. Flanders

2. Enduring Understanding Color is one of the most powerful elements of design. It is used to communicate and evoke emotions and ideas. Color affects almost every human activity, including purchase decisions. Businesses can benefit from using color effectively and from being informed about the power of color. An understanding of color is important in most career areas, including interior design, horticulture, landscaping, floral design, graphic communications, marketing, fashion marketing, culinary arts, and other businesses of all kinds.

3. Essential Questions • Why is color important? • What is color and what are the properties of color? • What effect does color have on people? • How is color used in business, marketing, and design? • How can color be applied to your career area?

4. Why is Color Important? • Color is a powerful tool in business, marketing, and design • Knowledge of color benefits: • Marketing, Fashion Marketing, Advertising • Horticulture, Landscaping, Floral Design • Graphic Design and Communications • Interior Design, Culinary Arts, Industrial Design, Architecture • And many more…

5. Why is Color Important? • Color has an emotional impact on the customer because of associations people make with colors in their environment • Cool colors (Blues, Greens, Purples) can be calming, sad, etc. • Warm colors (Reds, Oranges, Yellows) can be energizing, anxious, etc.

6. Why is Color Important? • Color choices can directly affect a consumer’s purchasing decisions: • Participants in a study thought vanilla ice cream dyed with red or green food coloring didn’t taste as good as the cream-colored ice cream • Red tends to make people hungrier, so many restaurants use red as their main design color • Green and blue colored ketchup just didn’t sell, and were pulled from the market

7. How Many Colors? • You might remember “ROYGBV” and answer “Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet…So there are six colors” • But there are MILLIONS of colors! • Some computer monitors can display over 16.7 million colors • A color like “green,” for example, is actually a range that includes over a million colors Fifty-four different types of green

8. How Many Colors? • Why do we have so many colors? • This is because of the properties of color: • Hue: red, yellow, green, blue, or purple • Value: lightness versus darkness, white versus black • Saturation: brightness or intensity versus dullness • Adding white makes a tint, adding black is a shade, and adding grey is a tone • dullness • Adding white makes a tint, adding black is a shade, and adding grey is a tone

9. Properties of Color • Subtractive color mixing describes the mixing of paints or pigments • Two main systems of subtractive: • RYB: primary colors Red, Yellow, and Blue are mixed to make orange, green, and purple (used in traditional paint mixing) • CMYK: primary colors are Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow (used in color printers)

10. Properties of Color • Additive color mixing describes the mixing of colored light • Uses the RGB system • Red, Green, and Blue are the primary colors • Inverse from the CMYK system • Used in computer monitors

11. Properties of Color • In the subtractive color system, white is the absence of pigment and black is the combination of all the colors of pigment • In the additive color system, black is the absence of light and white is the combination of all the colors of light • This is why black or white can be matched harmoniously with any color

12. Properties of Color • Color Schemes: • Monochromatic: tints shades and tones of a single hue are used, such as light blue, dark blue, and medium blue • Triadic: three colors that are equally spaced on the color wheel are used, such as red, blue, and yellow • Polychromatic: three or more unrelated colors are used Monochromatic Triadic

13. Properties of Color • Analogous: three colors next to each other on the color wheel are used, such as red, orange, and yellow • Complementary: two colors opposite each other on the color wheel are used, such as red and green Analogous Complementary

14. Properties of Color Triadic (three colors equally spaced) Monochromatic (same hue) Complementary (two colors on opposite sides) Analogous (adjacent colors)

15. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • It is color’s capacity to evoke emotion that makes it such a powerful tool in business and design. • Depending on the culture, however, a color may symbolize different things. • The pictures to the right show funeral dress is white in Thailand and black in the United States

16. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Even within a single culture, the meaning of a color can change over time • Today, pink represents female and blue represents male • But before the early 1900s, pink was actually considered masculine and blue considered feminine

17. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Pink • People believe pink pastries taste better from a pink box • People pay more for personal services by people wearing pink • Men think pink products do the best job but don’t want to be seen buying them

18. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Red • Associated with blood and fire. • Red can be fast, hot, passionate, angry, romantic, powerful, dangerous, or stimulating. • Red sports cars, red lipstick, red fire trucks, and red boxing gloves all convey these ideas. • Red is rarely used on ice cream packages because it reminds people of heat.

19. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Orange and Yellow • Associated with sunshine, warmth, energy, and happiness • When orange is used on a product, it proclaims that the product is for everyone. • Very bright variants of these colors can be jarring and loud, but good when used for warnings or attention-getters, such as road signs, safety vests, taxi cabs, or school buses.

20. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Green • Most predominant color in nature, so it tends to receive the most votes for favorite color. • Green is growth, life, hope, and progress. • A yellowish or brownish green can be sickness or disgust because of associations with vomit. • It is used to sell vegetables and chewing gum, but people avoid using it to sell meat, because green can remind people of mold.

21. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Blue • Most popular design color, especially in places where men work. • Light blue is peaceful and infinite like the ocean or sky, and can actually make people feel cooler.

22. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Blue Continued • Darker blues can be sad, cold, or lonely. • Blue inhibits people from eating, and is used to sell products like club soda, skim milk, and cottage cheese.

23. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Violet • Symbol of royalty because violet dye was made from mollusks and only the very wealthy could afford it. • Purple can also be mystery, magic, or the exotic since it is not found often in nature.

24. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Grey • Human eyes process gray more easily than any other color. • Grey is the color of a rainy day. • Associated with sadness, depression, boredom, tiredness, and loneliness.

25. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Brown • Earthy tone that represents stability. • It can also represent dirtiness and filth.

26. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Black and White • Represent opposites: good and evil, life and death, knowledge versus darkness, etc. • They remind us of timelessness because of black and white movies and photographs.

27. What Effect Does Color Have on People? • Black and White • In combination they represent sophistication and class. • White dress shirts became a symbol of class status because those who wore white were able to live a lifestyle that would not stain or dirty the fabric.

28. How is Color Used in the Professions? • Interior Design: Whether in a home or a business setting, color choices in a room create different emotional reactions • A room painted bright red or orange can cause anxiety and energetic feelings, • A room painted subtle green or blue can cause calming, relaxing feelings. • Dark colors can make the room feel smaller and claustrophobic while lighter colors make the room feel more open.

29. How is Color Used in the Professions? • Fashion Marketing: People use colors to communicate and express themselves. • A person wearing black and white might want to seem sophisticated and classy. • Or a person wearing all black might want to seem rebellious and tough, while a person wearing all white might want to seem innocent and pure. • A person wearing earth tones might want to blend in and seem more natural, while a person wearing bright neon colors might want to get your attention.

30. How is Color Used in the Professions? • Horticulture, Landscaping, and Floral Design: • If a client wants a garden they can use for relaxation, cool colored flowers in blues and purples would be the best choice • If the goal is to create a focal point, on the other hand, red, yellow, or orange flowers would be best • A small space can be made to look larger by placing warm colors in front, cool colors behind, and paler cool colors in the back. This creates depth because warm appears to advance and cool appears to recede.

31. How is Color Used in the Professions? • Graphic Communications, Graphic Design, Marketing, and Small Business: • For a business large or small, visual presence is important: packaging, logo design, website design, interior design, and advertisements all require attention to color • Many companies now tacitly imply their products are more natural by using greens, browns, and beiges in their packaging design. • Medium to lighter blues are the most popular colors used in website design. Associations with the sky and ocean create positive associations for consumers

32. How is Color Used in the Professions? • Culinary Arts: The color of our food can actually alter our perception of its taste: • Apples grown in Washington State sell much more than apples grown in Georgia because of their rich red color. • Georgia apples look poor in comparison, being duller and blending greenish tones with red ones. • In taste tests however, most people choose the Georgia apples as tasting better once the apples are peeled and sliced.

33. Summary Color is one of the most powerful elements of design. It is used to communicate and evoke emotions and ideas. Color affects almost every human activity, including purchase decisions. Businesses can greatly benefit from using color effectively and from being informed about the power of color. An understanding of color is important in most career areas, including interior design, horticulture, landscaping, floral design, graphic communications, marketing, fashion marketing, culinary arts, and other businesses of all kinds.

34. Review Questions • Why is color important? • List and define the three main properties of color. • List and define the three types of value variations for a color. • List and define the five main color combination schemes. • What is the difference between additive and subtractive color? • What is the difference between RGB and CMYK? • Besides CMYK, what is the common color system for mixing paints or pigments? • Explain how color is used in a profession that interests you.