By Tshepo Leroy Dube

Colours evoke a sense of
feeling that can be described as a form of language, that is ideally used in
our daily lives to express certain emotions. The particular feeling one gets
when they are looking at a certain colour. How colourful nature gets, on a
spring morning when all the flowers blossom evoking a sense of good energy
around, as the sun shines. When a loved one dies, in certain cultures wearing
black for a few months as a form of mourning, until a cultural ritual is done
to cleanse your body from your loss to signify a clear path to a brighter
future and ready to move on.

• Red: Passion, Love, Anger
• Orange: Energy, Happiness, Vitality
• Yellow: Happiness, Hope, Deceit
• Green: New Beginnings, Abundance, Nature
• Blue: Calm, Responsible, Sadness
• Purple: Creativity, Royalty, Wealth
• Black: Mystery, Elegance, Evil
• Gray: Moody, Conservative, Formality
• White: Purity, Cleanliness, Virtue
• Brown: Nature, Wholesomeness, Dependability
• Tan or Beige: Conservative, Piety, Dull
• Cream or Ivory: Calm, Elegant, Purity

From
what you consider to be your favourite colour. To the common theme of colours
in your closet, to how Robots/Traffic lights communicate with us. Red means
stop, Orange means prepare to stop and Green means go. We are constantly using
colours to communicate on a daily bases certain colours used to indicate
specific signs others to define what we do, from police wearing blue and
medical doctors wearing white coats.

Testing out commonalities in colour
communications leads to discovering, that most countries and cultures use same
colours to express the same meanings without even realising how colours are a
universal language. The colour GREEN is mostly associated with nature. RED
being the colour commonly used to communicate power or danger or love. ORANGE
regarded as the colour that signifies Energy,
Happiness or Vitality. Black is known to represent a more Mysterious approach,
Elegance or Evil look. The colour white has been seen as a more Clean, Pure and
Virtuous representation. Other colours such as BLUE represent Calmness,
Responsibility and sometimes Sadness hence the phrase Blue Monday or feeling
blue when one is under the weather or feeling down.

Fun Fact about Colours in Japanese
culture

Ever heard of the saying Japan Blue?
And wondered why? When foreigners were allowed to
enter Japan during the Meiji period (1868－1912),they were so astonished at the
fact that indigo blue was everywhere in Japanese towns that they called it
“Japan blue” Kimono, bedding, hand towels, noren–Japanese people would use it
for everything.

Indigo is a natural dye
made of fermented leaves of the indigo plant mixed with water. At first it was
used by aristocrats, but in the Edo period (1603－1868), all sorts of people
from common folk to samurai wore dyed clothes. Indigo-dyed clothes were not
only fashionable, but they also had three additional benefits: the fibre
becomes stronger after indigo dying, it has an insect repelling effect, and it
has a UV protective effect. Nowadays this colour is still used in a lot of
Japanese items, even blue jeans. https://kokoro-jp.com/culture/298/

When you enter certain
business fields you start to see how colours are important and also in certain
religious beliefs. In corporate life the suit blue is regarded as someone who
is trust worthy and responsible this can also be said as the reason for Police
being known to wear blue. Orange is a common colour known for energy, happiness
and vitality. Monks are known to wear Orange as a way to represent exactly
that, seeking happiness and having constant energy and not just any kind of
energy but the energy that can be received as peaceful and filled with Joy just
by being in their presence.

Many people in the
business field adapted the concept of colour importance. It could be stated
that in the past colours were used to differentiate the different rankings in a
certain company and also colours are used in places like restaurants such as
McDonalds chose the colour yellow as one of their main colours because that
colour represents happiness, joy. That also connects why their food is designed
to bring families together. 

Now that we know that
different colours symbolise different energies, it is easier for those who are
designing logos and starting new companies to understand that whatever they
pick from uniforms, to how their company looks colour wise. The colours need to
be communicating the right feeling, that speaks to their target market. You
want to make sure that the colours you pick make your customers feel safe
enough to want to use your services/product/goods.

your everyday life
…

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