Colour has psychological properties. Click here to learn more
Once you master the skills, colour psychology has practical, everyday uses, such as in restaurants, menus and brands. Yes, colour is indeed one of the tricks hidden inside a restaurant menu!
Here are some general qualities:
RED – Love, Excitement
Meaning: Stimulate the body and mind to increase stimulation (Mcdonalds, wendy’s etc). Red is also a bold attention-getting colour. Projects an image of power, action, and confidence. Red evokes strong emotions, whether love, warmth and comfort, or intensity or even anger. Red is powerful, could be fun.
YELLOW – Warmth, Energy
Meaning: Stimulate the nerves and purify the body. Shows happiness and perhaps more willing to take risks for a person who wears this colour. Yellow is energetic, can be aggressive or complex. But mostly seen as cheerful.
BLUE – Calmness, Sadness
Meaning: Soothe illness and treat pain. Colour of stability and safety. Indicates dependability and trust. Apposite to pink being associated to women, blue is usually associated/preferred for men. Evokes feelings of calmness or serenity. Can also create feelings of sadness or aloofness. Blue is sincere but can also be intense bringing both inspiration and sadness.
GREEN – Envy
Meaning: Symbolizes nature and the natural world, associated with tranquility, good luck, health, and jealousy. Long-time symbol of fertility. Used in decoration for calming effect (green rooms used before appearing on television). Optimistic colour and evokes compassion.
WHITE – Purity, Innocence
Meaning: Feeling of freshness and being clean. Often used to evoke a sense of youth and modernity (Apple). Associated with purity an innocence like angels but can also represent things like stark, cold and isolation from winter.
PINK – Romance, Kindness
Meaning: Associated with love and romance. Described as a feminine colour from childhood. Joyful colour, evokes creativity, feminine and vibrant but could also seem childish from the association of young girls being pushed pink toys and associated objects as boys would be pushed into something blue.
PURPLE – Wealth, Mystery, Wisdom
Meaning: Alleviate skin problems. Often seen as a royal colour. Seen as exotic and holds a great deal of symbolism. Purple is regal, sensual, conveys wisdom, and is soothing, while also being mysterious.
ORANGE – enthusiasm, Attention
Meaning: Heal the lungs and increase energy levels. Combination of yellow and red and calls feelings of excitement, enthusiasm and warmth. Linked with autumn and Halloween. Orange is spiritual, energetic, attention getting, and happiness.
BROWN – Reliability
Meaning: Brown is seen often in feng shui. Feng Shui, a system of harmonizing your environment. Brown represents either wood of earth, energetic, nurturing.
BLACK – Evil, Unhappiness
Meaning: Powerful colour, colour of luxury vehicles, described as sexy, powerful, mysterious and even ominous. Associated with death and mourning in many cultures with being a symbol of menace or evil because it absorbs all light. But also represents slimming qualities for fashion and with power and luxury.