I’m a Psychology major so naturally, the section that caught my attention the most was the psychological effects of color. This is something that I think everyone has been aware of, yellow represents happiness, red represents anger, blue represents sadness, etc. When I was in school, my favorite thing was matching my folders and notebooks to my subjects. I always picked red for math, green for science, orange for history, and blue for english. I saw these colors and just thought, “this color looks like ___.” It is weird to think about but, it makes sense. Even though I knew about these associations, I have never thought about it from the stance of graphic design. An artist has to take this into account when they are creating their pieces in order to make sure their message is delivered correctly. Color meanings are not the same in every culture. White is generally thought to represent purity but, in Japan, white is linked with death and in India, it has negative associations as well. In order to reach every audience, these are things that need to be considered. Something I forget about all the time is the fact that we all see color differently. Color blind people see the world in a different shade than I do. If an artist’s message is based on the colors used, it will inevitably have multiple different messages because of this. Society’s color associations are also important. Green and red are always linked with Christmas the same way orange, black and purple are linked with Halloween. Seasonal colors also come into play when creating pieces. In fashion, clothes made for each season have a particular color palette to match the “vibe.” It is crazy to think that something as simple as color has so many different aspects to it.
