Now I’m not a professional in psychology and I won’t claim to be. I did however, take a class in the first semester of interior design school where we learned a little bit about the psychology of colour and how it affects us. It turns out colour can produce a physical and behavioral response in our bodies.
Have you ever thought about what goes into choosing brand colours? Or why the majority of fast food places use colours like red or green?
This is because we’ve come to learn that people have a response to different colours. Basically the colour you choose to brand with can affect how well your business does. Certain colours can literally influence our body’s to have physical reaction such as raise blood pressure, speed up metabolism, increase oxygen supply to the brain and influence our behavioral response.
Therefore as an interior designer it’s important to understand the psychology of colour and how to use it appropriately based on our clients.
If you are looking to simply design your house or start your own brand, here’s some ways the psychology of colour can affect us.
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Red
Red is a colour that represents extreme emotions. Some of them being courage, excitement, love, passion, seduction, anger, fear and embarrassment. Red is an attention grabbing colour and can create intense feelings within us when we see it.
When we see the colour red, our bodies tend to secret more adrenaline, our blood pressure increases, rate of breathing increases and our body temperature can somewhat increase. This colour can cause tantrums in children and can also increase our appetite.
So next time you see a restaurant with red branding you’ll know why.
Orange
Orange is a colour that holds traits of both red and yellow. It represents warmth, motivation, truthfulness, happiness, cheerfulness, strength, endurance and danger.
Like red, orange can stimulate appetite. It can also increase pulse rate and oxygen to the brain.
Yellow
Yellow is mostly seen as a happy and cheerful colour. It’s also associated with wisdom, vitality, hope, optimism and self-esteem.
Yellow can speed up metabolism and enhance concentration. It can also cause children to cry, induce anger and cause muscle spasms in older people.
Green
When I think of green, I think of nature. Many brands will use the colour green if they want to give off the impression of healthiness or being eco-friendly.
Green can also be representative of relaxation, growth, freshness, renewal, wealth, peace, immortality, poison, envy, inexperience, nausea, sourness and immaturity.
The colour green can help tremors, twitching and muscle spasms as wells as reduce allergic or negative responses to food.
Blue
The ocean is what comes to mind when I think of the colour blue. Blue is a calming, comfortable, relaxing colour. It also represents truthfulness, loyalty, cleanliness, confidence, success, introversion, depression and lonliness .
The colour has the ability to reduce appetite and make people work more productively.
Purple
Purple is a luxurious colour and is often used to depict indulgence and expensiveness. It also represents royalty, independence, mystery, bravery, sacredness, spirituality, conceit, mourning, death, rage and gloom.
Purple with more blue in can take on some of blue’s characteristics and calm anxiety.
Black
Black is a deep and mysterious colour representing the unknown. It’s associated with sophistication, power, elegance, formality, death emptiness and bad luck.
This colour can induce feelings of sadness, emptiness and fear within people who are near it.
[…] about the psychology of colour is another important aspect when picking colours in general. It’s very possible that the […]