Colors and how people generally associate them:

 


WHITE – White is associated with innocence, purity, peace and contentment. It’s considered clean and sterile. It’s cool and refreshing. White can have a calming, stabilizing influence.

 

BLACK – Black is the ultimate power color.It suggests strength, potency, authority, boldness, seriousness, stability and elegance. It’s distinguished and classic, great for creating drama. Black has more weight than other colors. Too much can be ominous.

 

GRAY or SILVER – Gray can be associated with conservative qualities and considered traditional. Business-wise, it symbolizes high tech and suggests authority, practicality, earnestness and creativity.

 

GOLD – Gold suggests wealth. It’s considered to be very classy.

 

BLUE – Blue is the favorite color of many businesses. It suggests sanctuary and fiscal responsibility. It inspires confidence. It is the most popular and second most powerful color. Darker shades are authoritative. Dark and bright blues represent trust, security, faithfulness and dignity. Paler shades can imply freshness and cleanliness, although they can imply weakness.

 

RED – Red stimulates many kinds of appetites. Red commands attention, alerts us and creates a sense of urgency. It’s considered the sexiest of all colors. Red symbolizes heat, fire, blood, love, warmth, power, excitement, energy, strength, passion, vitality, risk, danger and aggressiveness. Financially, it’s associated with debt.

 

YELLOW – Yellow is the sunshine hue and is a spiritual color. Yellow represents a warning, but it can also bring happiness and warmth. The most preferred yellows are the creamy and warm ones. Bright yellow can be irritable to the eye in large quantities. Yellow speeds metabolism. It’s often used to highlight or draw attention.

 

GREEN – People associate green with the color of money, as well as nature. Olive greens are associated with health and freshness — a good choice for environmental concerns. Green suggests fertility, freedom, healing and tranquility.  Green represents jealousy. Businesses use it to communicate status and wealth. Green is a calming, refreshing color that is very easy on the eyes.

 

BROWN – Brown is associated with nature and the earth. Dark browns represent wood or leather. Brown and shades of cream are associated with warmth and coziness. Brown suggests richness, politeness, helpfulness and effectiveness. It is solid, credible, mature and reliable. Light brown implies genuineness.

 

ORANGE – Orange is associated with vibrancy and the tropics, as well as warmth and contentment. It can instill a sense of fun and excitement. It implies health. It suggests pleasure, cheer, endurance, generosity and ambition. It can make an expensive product seem more affordable. It appeals to a wide range of people, both male and female.

 

PINK – Pink is considered to be a very feminine color. It represents gentleness, romance, well being and innocence.

 

PURPLE – Purple represents royalty and luxury. In darker shades, it’s considered a wealthy color. It suggests spirituality and sophistication. In paler shades, such as lavender, it’s feminine and romantic.

 

Source: expertbusinesssource.com/article/CA6442504.html 

 

 

Color Increases Memory:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture with natural colors may be worth a million, memory-wise. Psychologists have documented that "living color" does more than appeal to the senses. It also boosts memory for scenes in the natural world. By hanging an extra "tag" of data on visual scenes, color helps us to process and store images more efficiently than colorless (black and white) scenes, and as a result to remember them better.

 

Source: The findings were reported in the May 2002 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, published by the American Psychological Association (APA) "The Contributions of Color to Recognition Memory for Natural Scenes," Felix A. Wichmann, Max-Planck Institut für Biologische Kybernetik and Oxford University; Lindsay T. Sharpe, Universität Tübingen and University of Newcastle; and Karl R. Gegenfurtner, Max-Plank Institut für Biologische Kybernetik and Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen; Journal of Experimental Psychology – Learning, Memory and Cognition, Vol 28. No.3., 5-May-2002
 

 

 

Color Engages and Increases participation:

Ads in color are read up to 42% more often than the same ads in black and white.

 

Source: White, Jan V., Color for Impact, Strathmoor Press, April, 1997

 

  

Color Informs:

Color can improve readership by 40 percent, learning from 55 to 78 percent, and comprehension by 73 percent.

 

Source: (1)"Business Papers in Color. Just a Shade Better", Modern Office Technology, July 1989, Vol. 34, No. 7, pp. 98-102  (2) Embry, David, "The Persuasive Properties of Color", Marketing Communications, October 1984. (3) Johnson, Virginia, "The Power of Color", Successful Meetings, June 1992, Vol 41, No. 7, pp. 87, 90.