Color Associations

For your reference, here is a list of colors and some common associations ascribed to them. Generally speaking, warm, cold, and neutral indicate that color's typical hue. White and black are considered base colors, and only acquire a hue when another color is added to them.

Red (Warm). Red is readily visible and attracts attention. Red represents intensity and urgency; it is the color of blood, fire, heat, desire, war, danger, rage, strength, power, and speed. Some say looking at the color red can increase your blood pressure, metabolism, and appetite. Red is commonly used for stop signs, "For Sales" Signs, and "Buy Now" and "Click here" buttons. Lighter shades of red and pink might represent love, passion, and romance.

Orange (Warm). Orange is also highly visible and quite intense but less so than red. Orange is associated with sunshine, joy, creativity, autumn, energy, and warmth. As an interesting side note, in 1999, orange was the most frequently used color on websites.

Green (Cool). Green is the primary color of nature, healing, growth, prosperity, and harmony. Green is soothing and is often associated with freshness, purity, money, and recreation.

Brown (Neutral). Brown is the color of earth, structure, and wholesomeness.

Blue (cool). Blue is the color of the sea and the sky. Blue is fluid, cool, receding, calming, clear, intuitive, and vocal. the color blue represents truth, intelligence, faith, heaven, confidence, vision, peace, agreement, and consciousness. Blue is at the far end of the color spectrum from red and represents the opposite of red. Dark blue is common among corporate logos and can represent depth and stability.

Purple (Warm or cool). Purple, a mixture of red and blue, literally combines the energy and excitement of red with the depth and stability of blue. For some, this combination is psychologically difficult to resolve and can create tension, but for more people, purple represents power, luxury, mystery, magic, and rarity. The color purple is often associated with royalty, fantasy, and the artist formerly known as Prince (and now known as prince again).

White (base) Technically, white is the combination of all the colors of light. In essence, a rainbow (which is simply a shaft of sunlight) is white, and its colors come from the light's reflection on water (clouds/rain). White represents purity, clarity, innocence, cleanliness, levity, light, goodness, virginity, impenetrability, godliness, faith, life, and safety. Other associations: dairy, angels, hospitals, and heath.

Black (base) Technically, black is the absence of light and, Hence, the absence of color. Black can represent power, authority, strength, elegance, and formality - or, on the other side of the fence, it can represent fear, death, despair, evil, and enigma. Black is also associated with simplicity. Black in combination with other colors can be very powerful. On a website, too much black, especially as a background or in large chunks, can distract attention and cause the images on the page to recede. The human eye is attracted to and stimulated by light. When bombarded with black, which is the absence of light, we are compelled to try to escape the darkness and to look for other visual stimuli.

Based on this list of colors and their associations, think about a color scheme for your site that is appropriate, both to your brand and to your demographic. For instance, a site that focuses on eco friendly architecture is likely to be clean looking and have green and white as its main color themes, while financial institutions are more likely to design with a shade of dark blue that instills trust and confidence in their visitors.

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