#color expression

There is a communicative power to color. Knowing this expressive power of color allows the artist and designer to clearly covey his or her intended message.

A single color or combination of colors might contain symbolic meaning, evoke emotions, convey a message, attract attention or display a mood.

Social, cultural, human psychology, as well as fashion trends are factors that can affect how colors are seen, felt, or interpreted.

For a specific color expression it is important to understand the requirement for achieving a predetermined goal.

One process of systematic color thinking is to begin choosing one main color and choosing other colors to work with it.

Remember, in any color scheme adjustment to hue, value, and Chroma can lead to significant changes in color expression.

With that said, here are ideas related to color expression:

Reds – Convey strong emotion and are the first to catch the eye. They are hot, intense, and active hues that are associated with blood, anger, aggression, war, and evil, as well as with integrity, love, and passion.

Oranges – Warm colors that are associated with cheeriness and life, not as intense as red but more visible than yellow. Adding white tends to make it lose character, making it look feeble and weak. Black moves it to a dull and withered brown that is a good base for beige hues.

Yellows – The most light giving and intense of all pure hues. When used alone, yellows can be hard to see, but when yellows are added to a dark composition, a sense of light and cheeriness may be created. Used at normal value, yellows are symbolically associated with knowledge, understanding, life, and the sun. When yellow is diluted, it is associated with cowardice, envy, distrust, betrayal, doubt, and falseness, and disease.

Greens – Soothing to the eye because of their softness and saturation, they are associated with life, fruitfulness, contentment, friendliness, hope, dependability, and steadiness.

Blues – Calming and soothing hues, they are very passive spatially. Blues are always associated with coldness and carry spiritual significance because of the link to the sky and water. They symbolically carry interpretations of sadness and honor in the pure hues, but as they are diluted become associated with superstition, fear, grief, and perdition.

Violets – Deep and rich hues, they appear spacious and saturated. They are associated with royalty, the unconscious, mystery, piety, injury, and insanity.