You can’t communicate in a language you’re not proficient in.

You’d struggle to speak but remain unheard. The frustration of silence in a foreign land will engulf you.

Before moving to a new place, no doubt, learn their language.

This is what color is. It is a language. And you use it to captivate your audience. To learn it, you need time and information.

This article helps you to understand what you need to know about colors.

Color is powerful but its power is usually unnoticed. The red light on a traffic signal indicates to “stop, do not proceed.” Red is used in life-threatening situations. Think: stop signs, sirens, fire engines, and red traffic lights.

Red is also used to signify danger in a non-literal way. If asked to visualize “financial loss,” you almost always see the color red. Same with calling out “red flags” in a person.

Flipping the script, red is also associated with passion. Isn’t a woman in a red dress just lovely?

Do you see how one color is used to represent good and bad? Do you see how much of a language it is?

That’s the effect color has on people. But it comes down to using it in the right context.

Understanding colors means understanding color psychology. You learn how different colors affect human perception.

You don’t have to memorize the effects of all the colors but you do need to understand why you choose the colors you choose.

Using colors depends on the context. One such example is culture.

In Western culture, blue is often linked to safety, trust, and authority. Same as banks there right?

In Eastern culture, blue can symbolize immortality and is sometimes associated with healing and protection.

These meanings though formed through heritage, change over time. Could you imagine pink used to be a masculine color?

In the 1920s, some described pink as a masculine color, equivalent to red, which was considered for men but lighter for boys. But stores nonetheless found that people were increasingly choosing to buy pink for girls, and blue for boys, until it became accepted as the norm in the 1940s.

And for good reason too. In the 19th century, pink was seen as a lighter shade of red, which was linked to strength.

By mid-20th century, particularly after World War II, pink began to be marketed as a color for girls and became associated with femininity.

Wild right? Meanings of colors change with time, so understanding the times is crucial.

As you now understand, one color can have different meanings in different contexts.

This is why it’s important to understand the context, or mood, in which you want to use color. This involves 3 things. You’ll learn them as we proceed.

I scarcely mention it, but you should know that I’m talking about color in the context of brand design.

You can understand how someone would feel about a certain color by studying their background and the color too. Google will only give you surface-level information about certain colors.

This is why you should go deeper than a mere Google search. Open Wikipedia and read some history.

Consider these 3 things when choosing brand colors:

The audience

The target audience. The colors they like and the meanings they have associated with them.

You don’t need in-person interviews with these people, just bring up their cultural history from Wikipedia.

You’ll learn a lot more about a culture from there than talking to people.

The context

It’s one thing to know the audience, it’s another to set the right context or mood.

Youtube uses red. It stimulates excitement, and love. Don’t you just love watching your favorite creators? Color is part of the reason you feel that way.

Color often goes noticed but it’s power is immense. So become aware. Watch the way you react to things and find the colors associated with them.

Many banks and financial service companies choose blue for their branding, as it is associated with trust, dependability, and professionalism.

Upon closer inspection, you’ll notice their design style isn’t particularly soft. It’s strong, straight, bold, lines and sharp corners. If it weren’t you wouldn’t think of them as professional in a sense.

The form the colors are used with greatly shape our perception toward the meaning of the color.

Form meaning, lines, boxes, etc.

Another example is restaurants. They often use bright colors, mostly because of the bright colors of food, to stimulate appetites.

Luxury brands use gold and black to create a sense of exclusivity.

This tells you, the industry shapes the context. The audience shapes it even more.

The brand

The brand DNA(purpose,vision,mission, and values) uncover what the brand is about and gives insights as to what colors you need.

To choose colors based on this only is bad. It is self serving and you might end up passing a different message from the one you intended to send.

But this should inform the process. This would come first even without you trying. Try designing a brand identity and notice your client telling you colors they’d like to have. That’s what I’m talking about.

To recap;

• You can’t communicate in a language you’re not proficient in.

• Color depends on context. Context depends on the culture.

• Color is a language(felt like this should’ve come first :)

• Understand the audience, context, and brand before choosing a color.