Category Archives: fun

What does colour mean?

Colours have meanings. By that I mean that when we see colour we are reminded of certain things. There is a symbolism which is related to the field of semiotics. This symbolism is, in my opinion, as important – if not more so – than the aesthetics of colour. At least, I think this is often true in design. And it is for this reason that the internet is awash with infographics and blogs that tell us what the meanings are so that we can use them appropriately. This is the sort of thing that we often see:

There is an element of truth in this sort of infographic of course but it’s far too simplistic. Does it explain, for example, why HSBC use red as their brand colour?

Or the use of red in Baxter’s soup packaging?

Of the use of red in packaging of fruit yoghurt?

I don’t think that infographic explains any of these uses of red. Nevertheless, there is design thinking behind the use of colour in each of these cases. However, it is the sort of thinking that requires a deep knowledge of various cultural ideas including traditions and trends. In fact, it is for this reason that I find the use of colour in design (particularly in packaging) fascinating. It’s Boxing Day and my teenage son is still in bed after an all nighter (don’t ask!). So I thought I would tell you what my thinking is about these three examples of the use of red. I apologise in advance that this will be quite a long blog post. So are you sitting comfortably?

Let’s take the use of red by HSBC first. I often see infographics that state that red is a bad choice for a bank.

And if we look at the logos of banks in the UK this certainly seems to hold some truth.

However, what if we look further afield? To Asia, for example.

It turns out that red is an incredibly popular colour for banks in some parts of the world. And this brings us to the first point which is that the meanings that colours have can often depend upon the cultural background of the viewer (or receiver). Whereas I would argue that in the West the colour most associated with good fortune is green, it is undeniable that it is red in many Asian countries, especially in East Asia. It is therefore not surprising that banks often use red for their branding because which bank doesn’t want consumers to be reminded of good luck and fortune when they are thinking of putting some money in the bank or considering some other financial transaction? So, to understand the HSBC colour, we have to understand that although HSBC is a common sight on UK high streets today, the origins of the bank are in Kong Kong and Shanghai. The clue is the name – the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Interestingly, the shape of the HSBC logo is derived from the cross of St Andrew which turns out to be true of many Hong Kong company flags and logos. You can read more about the history of the HSBC logo here. Understanding that colour meanings in one geographical location might not translate to another location is important to avoid making simple, yet potentially serious, mistakes.

Second, we can turn to the use of red in tins of Baxter’s soup. If we look at the Baxter’s tin of soup the thing that stands out to me first of all is the green of the soup. A number of years ago, when I was developing my thinking around colour meaning whilst working with Seahwa Won who obtained her PhD in this topic and is now an academic in Korea, we developed the term original substance colour to explain the observation that for food packaging in particular, we often see the colour of the actual product being represented in the packaging. So we see orange packaging for orange juice, brown packaging for coffee, etc. This idea is never mentioned in the infographics you can find online. Often, the packaging is transparent so that the colour that you see is the actual colour of the product itself.

In this case the transparent packaging allows the colour of the fruit juice to be seen
In this case, the packaging uses orange; the original substance colour of the product

So with Baxter’s soup we have the original substance colour of the pea soup that dominates and starts the design. So what about the red? Well, there are a few things going on here which is often the case. Often, the colours used in a design work so well together in a number of different ways that you can only admire the ingenuity of the design team. There is the fact that the Baxter’s logo is red. I don’t know how long this has been the case – if anyone knows anything about the history of the Baxter logo please let me know in the comments. But we also have a colour harmony. Opposite hues – red and green, in this case – often work well together aesthetically. But if we have a really bright vivid red and a really bright vivid green next to each other then this can be unsettling. That might not be the intended effect here. It’s very often much nicer to have one of the hues quite bold and then have the other much more muted. This only goes to demonstrate another truism which is that colour harmony is about more than just the relationships between hues.

We have a red-green relationship in both cases but the relationship on the right will be seen as more aesthetically pleasing than the one on the right because of the difference in chroma

Finally, there is the fact that Baxter’s is a Scottish company. I don’t know if the tartan shown on the Baxter’s soup label has any connection with the company but that combination of red and green looks very much like the tartan of the Baxter Clan.

So there you have it, you have original substance colour, colour harmony, and the Scottish symbolism of the tartan to remind you that this is a Scottish heritage company all working together. And the pale green background and the dark red text even gives you excellent contrast for legibility. Very beautiful work in my opinion. The point is that something like this

doesn’t even begin to tell you about why these colours are used on the outside of this tin of soup. These infographics are way too simple; not even at undergraduate level to be honest and they are pretty much useless.

Finally we can look at the yoghurt pot. Again, the red is not used because it represents passion, energy, urgency, excitement, vibrancy or danger. It is simple original substance colour again with the red representing strawberries.

Red can mean so many things: original substance colour in many food packages, good luck and fortune in Asian bank logos, emergency and danger in health and safety equipment, stop when it is a traffic light. Yes, it can also mean passion and urgency and vibrancy. But context is everything.

In my teaching at the University of Leeds I often refer to this advertisement for the mini.

What does the red symbolise in this mini commercial?

The combination of red, white and black is aesthetically pleasing. But there are lots of similar combinations that could have been used. But the red is used symbolically. It is the True Blood mini convertible. Feel the wind in your fangs!! Exclusively for vampires. This is excellent colour design because the colours work with the text and the imagery and are consistent with the messages that are intended. The red symbolises blood. And the combination of red, white and black together in this context, with the other cues, indicate vampires!

I hope you found this interesting. It passed a few hours between one Boxing Day meal and the next for me. Leave a comment if you liked it or disagree with my analysis or if you noticed something that I didn’t. If you liked this post, take a look at my earlier holiday post about Christmas colour symbolism if you didn’t see it. Enter your email in the subscription box below to get updates when I post new stuff.

Visit my patreon page for more detailed colour education

Colour symbolism at Christmas

At this time of year my thoughts sometimes turn to the colours that we associate with Christmas: red, green, gold, silver and white, in various combinations. One of the things that I sometimes read about is where Father Christmas always had a red suit or whether he had a green one. I note that in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Santa is wearing a dull brownish tunic.

Father Christmas in Narnia

Though apparently according to CS Lewis himself in the book: on the sledge sat a person everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as hollyberries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest.

https://www.thephantastic.com/home/narnia-always-winter-and-never-christmas

There are also annual stories about whether the traditional red we now associate with Father Christmas was influenced by Coca-Cola for marketing reasons. So, today I thought I would share this blog post about the truth of Father Christmas and red. It does refer to Coca-Cola who, I believe, had a role in popularising our current image of Santa but were not actually responsible for the colour change. This view is also reinforced by this blog post about Santa and red.

Anyway, the thing I read today that inspired me to write this post is actually this blog post which is about colour symbolism and Christmas.

Finally, if you want to explore the meanings that colours have in a more academic perspective here is a link to two papers that are free to read in JAIC – the Journal of the International Colour Association. One was written by me and Seahwa Won (who was my PhD student at the time) and you can see that one here. The other is written by José Luis Caivano and Mabel Amanda Lopéz, well known colour experts in Argentina, and you can see that here.

colour and personality

Can you deduce personality based on colour choice?

A new quiz on playbuzz suggests so. You are asked to rate each of 10 colour palettes with either yes, no or not sure as to whether you like them or not. The test is created by Christina Yang.

I guess it’s just a bit of fun. It reminds me somewhat of the Luscher test, a colour-personality test invented by Max Lüscher. This test does have some credibility and is used by some psychiatrists. However, a number of papers recently published have caste doubt on its effectiveness. My feeling is that personality is probably too complex and multi-varied to be easily assessed by a few colour selections. Much the same could be said about horoscopes.

what colour is your passport?

passport colours

Whenever I am travelling to a conference and standing in a line at an airport it seems to me that everyone has either a burgundy passport like me or a red one if the are from USA. It turns out that most passports really are the same colour as this great infographic shows. Well, one of only about four colours so it seems. It’s interesting the way they are grouped; I wonder why Africa tends to use green or black. For the full story see. here.

Do women use more colour names than men?

I just came across this funny cartoon about the difference between men and women in terms of colour names.

doghouse_color_wheel_altered

But on the same page I found the results from an actual colour survey where over five million colours were named across 222,500 user sessions. One aspect of the results is shown below:

doghouse_analysis

It does seem that there is some evidence that women use more colour names than men – though generally there was agreement between how the names were used. For further details see the original article.

#TheDress

I was asked to comment on the radio today about a dress which is topping the trends of social media in the USA in particular today.

2622C22600000578-0-image-a-32_1425001827044

The dress has sparked controversy because different people say that it is different colours. There is a group who say it is blue and black and another group who say that it is white and gold. What do you think?

I will give my explanation but it is not simple so …

Now, about 1 in 12 of all men in the world are colour blind. But if we consider the rest of the population you may be surprised to know that there is variability in our colour vision. This is mainly due to the colour receptors in our eyes. Put simply, some people have more red receptors and some people have more green receptors, for example. So we know that we don’t all see colour in the same way.

There is a second complexity and that is just because we use different names for a colour doesn’t mean we see it differently. This most often happens with brownish colours where some people will refer to it as more of a green and others will be adamant that it is definitely a brown. So words – colour names in particular – are not always very precise. We can see at least 3 million colours in the world and how many names do we have? A few hundred at least.

There is a third complexity which is that people think the camera never lies – that is, that they take an image of something using their phone and put it on the internet and everyone is seeing a faithful reproduction of the thing they took a picture of. Sadly, the camera does lie. Variability in the light that is used to capture the image, the settings on your display (whether you have a warm white or a cool white, for example) and how bright the light is in the room when you look at your screen – these can all dramatically affect the colour. Take a look at the picture below:

dress_original

This is the manufacturer’s photo of the dress. Taken professionally, I think most people would see it as blue and black. But the image that is on the internet is very different. I suspect it was taken in a very bright light and the colours are consequently a bit washed out.

So, in summary, the camera does lie. I think the lighting conditions under which the photo was taken were far from ideal and have changed the colours from how they would have appeared if you had been there. However, that is only half the story. Since people looking at the same image on the same screen are disagreeing with the colours. To fully explain what is going on you need to invoke the knowledge that we can sometimes see colours differently (because of variability from one person to the next) and even if we see the colour the same we might give it a different name (because colour names are crude ways to communicate colour).

Of course, fundamental to this is the idea that things are not coloured at all but your brain constructs a colour from the signals it receives in the eye. This allows us, for example, to discount changes in colour that may occur when the light source changes (this is known as colour constancy). We have evolved to discount the effect of light being bluer or yellower, for example, so that we normally see the colours that the object would have in neutral daylight. In the case of the dress image it may be that people are using different processing strategies and discounting the effect of the light source in different ways.

Which all goes to show that colour is complex. But if you have been reading my blog you already know that, don’t you?

guess what – red is sexy

red is sexy
Guess what? Another article that concludes that women wearing red are more likely to attract a mate. Scientist claims women are reflecting their sexual intentions ‘from the beginning’ by wearing bright red clothing. It’s a shocker!!! Who would have thought it!

It must be true because I read it in the Daily Mail.