People often take for granted the power of color in a room. For most people, color can affect productivity, happiness, energy, and lots of other things. Look at the logos and branding of businesses around you. What does the red in McDonalds do for you? The next time you drive down the busy city street, note the main colors of fast food restaurants. Is there one color that you see more than others? What about the brown and yellow of UPS? Harley Davidson? Visa, Bank of America, PayPal? Big businesses pay dearly for color consultants who develop their logos and the look of their brands. These consultants have done their homework when it comes to what color does for the human psyche. Let’s take a closer look.
Yellow, Orange, and Brown
Yellow: Yellow is cheerful and warm. It encourages feelings of wellbeing and tends to inspire confidence. It may also produce anxiety, cause eye fatigue, and make babies cry more (when their rooms are painted yellow.) Maybe these last possibilities are not the best for the home office. It is recommended to use yellow in office environments only in moderation. Painting an entire office bright yellow may look warm and cozy; however, after a few hours, workers can be irritable, fatigued, and anxious. It’s best to use yellow – at least bright yellow – in small doses.
Examples: Business who want to send a message of optimism, warmth, clarity have lots of yellow in their logos: UPS, Mikon, Shell Oil, IKEA, Best Buy, Hertz, Subway, Sprint, CATapillar, Penzoil, Dennys
Orange: Orange reflects warmth and caution and tends to create enthusiasm and draw attention. Orange is exciting.
Examples: Companies with orange in their logo may be sending the message of cheerfulness, confidence, and friendliness. Think about Amazon, Starz, Harley Davidson, Shutterfly, Gulf oil, Hooters, and Nickelodeon.
Blue and Green
Blue: Blue reflects calmness and serenity and is the color used in most offices if they are not white. Men tend to prefer blue. Blue also tends to curb appetite, encourage thinking, and increase performance and creativity. Blue is great for conference rooms and collaborative spaces to inspire productivity. Light blue is a good color for creative spaces. In an office, blue can be found in accents, such as windows looking out to blue sky, fish tanks, water features, etc.
Examples: Blue is used by a lot of big corporations who want to send the message of trust, dependability, strength, and professionalism – think about the logos of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, AT&T, Ford, IBM, PayPal, Facebook, JPMorgan, VISA, Gap, CitiBank, Dell, hp, CBS news, Sears, Fox news, AOL, Skype, Linkedin, etc.
Green: Green reflects health and tranquility. It also encourages relaxation and a calm energy and symbolizes money, nature, and fertility. Blue-green areas tend to elicit calmness, openness, and trust. Olive colors tend to promote concentration for reading and learning.
Examples: In business, green sends the message of growth, health, and peacefullness. Think about the logos of Whole Foods, Animal Planet, Tropicana, Spottify, Starbucs, bp gas, and Hess oil.
Red, Pink, and Purple
Red: Red reflects high energy and urgency. It tends to evoke strong emotions, passion, intensity, and creativity and tends to motivate workers. It also tends to increase appetite. Red rooms tend to be emotionally uncomfortable. It may be best to use red as an accent color rather than a wall color. Some businesses paint employee lounges red so employees won’t stay there too long.
Examples: Many restaurants use red in their logo: Wendys, Popeys, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, KFC, Denny’s, Coca Cola, Lays, Frito Lay, Dairy Queen, Nabisco. In addition to increasing appetite, it sends the message of excitement, boldness, and youth. Think about Netflix, Lego, Target, Cannon, Avis, K Mart, Nintendo, YouTube, Pintrist, and Kelloggs.
Pink: Pink reflects love and romance. It is also thought to be calming. For a long time, they used pink in drunk tanks and prison cells thinking it would keep inmates calm; however, they found that living in pink did the opposite.
Examples: Businesses who want to address women in particularly tend to have pink in their logos: Barby, Oprah, Victoria Secret, National Breast Cancer Foundation.
Purple: Purple reflects wealth and success as well as wisdom and royalty.
Examples: Businesses who want to send a message of creativity, imagination, and wisdom often use shades of purple in their logo. Think about Yahoo!, Welches, Hallmark, Taco Bell, T Mobile, The Syfy channel, and Monster.com
Black, White, Silver, Gold
White: White reflects purity and optimism. It tends to create the illusion of space and often makes things less cluttered when white space is used in visual presentations and writing. White symbolizes positivity, innocence, and cleanliness (like in hospitals). It is also thought to be boring if all the walls are white. Bright white is highly reflective and can cause yey strain.
Black, White, Silver, and Gold: Black, white, silver, and gold tend to send the message of luxury and sophistication for obvious reasons.
Examples: Cadillac (black with a little red and gold), Lexus (black, silver, and white), Porsche (black with gold and red), Channel (black on white), Audi (usually silver circles over a red “Audi”)
Complex Colors
Complex color patterns tend to make a room seem busy and make workers in the room grumpy. They report that the tasks are more complex and demanding than they really are. Strong primary colors with lots of contrast can negatively affect attitudes and productivity.
What do you think?
So what do colors do for you? Individuals view colors uniquely. What do different colors do for you? What color is your office? How do you feel? How is your productivity? Let us know about your color experiences.