173: Thou shall explore color psychology

Commentary Psychology generates skepticism among nonsubscribers, but it’s not all (ahem) bull. A bull doesn’t chase a cape because it’s red—in fact bulls are color blind. He does it because the matador is waving it in his face and because he doesn’t like the matador very much. Seriously though, color can be used by designers to invoke a range of emotions and behaviors. Red is particularly interesting, coming from the warm area of the spectrum, and conjures feelings of warmth and comfort as well as anger, hostility, and danger. Colors from the cool end, such as blues and greens, can be used to call forth a sense of calm, but can also create feelings of sadness or indifference. It’s well worth reading up a little on how the psychology of color works as it’ll help to inform your choice of colors for your design projects, adding some context to those choices, which in turn will supply you with some ammunition to fire back at your client when they utter the immortal line, “I can see what you’re saying, but I don’t like blue.” TS