How colours influence people

When people create logo's, marketing and website themes they often plan the content and maybe research the sector, however the majority of businesses do not select the right colours to help get across their message, don't worry below I have outlined the main colours and what associations our brains naturally make with them.

Red:

• Encourages appetite – often used by fast food chains
• Creates a sense of urgency
• Is frequently used for clearance sales
• Associated with movement, excitement and passion
• Is high in energy and immediately pulls focus
• Physically stimulates the human body, affecting nerve impulses, raising blood pressure and heart rate

 
Blue:

• Preferred by men
• Associated with peace, water and reliability
• Provides a sense of security and promotes trust in a brand
• Curbs appetite and stimulates productivity
• Most common colour used for offices and conservative corporate brands
• Calming mind, providing a sense or tranquillity and space
• Young people associate blue with maturity

 
Green:

• Associated with health, tranquillity and nature
• Also associated with money and wealthy people or brands
• Used in stores to relax customers
• Frequently used for promoting environmental issues
• Green stimulates harmony in the brain and encourages balance between body and emotions, leading to decisiveness

 
Purple:

• Associated with royalty, wisdom and respect
• Stimulates the problem-solving area of the brain as well as creativity
• Frequently used for beauty and anti-aging products
• Represents a creative, wise and imaginative brand, service or product

 
Orange & Yellow

• increases cheerfulness and optimism
• yellow makes babies cry, while orange can show caution
• used to draw in impulsive buyers and window shoppers
• stimulates logic centre of the brain and promotes enthusiasm
• if used to frequently, can cause a sense of anxiety

 
Black:

• Associated with authority, power, stability and strength
• Often is a symbol of intelligence
• Frequently used to trim down appearance of sizes of items
• Can often overwhelm people if it is used to frequently

 
Grey:

• Symbolise feelings of practicality, timelessness and solidarity in life
• Too much grey often leads to feelings of nothingness
• Though grey is nice to have, it can draw in emotions of old age, death and depression

 
White:

• Associated with feelings of purity, cleanliness and safety
• White can be used to project the absence of colour or neutrality
• Using white can spark a sense of creativity since it acts as a clean slate

 
I hope you have found this article useful and if you have any questions please email [email protected]