There have been many colour theorists throughout the course of history, looking into the ways colours interact with each other and with us humans. Let’s talk about their findings!
Colour theory is primarily a study of how colours affect each other and what they mean to us. Of course, some colours have iconic meanings to humans: red means stop, green means go. But there can be much more to them, evoking emotions and opinions within the small clump of the human mind!
Some Like It Hot
Looking at the colour wheel from a primary and secondary colour perspective, it does appear as though the red, yellow, orange combination give a warm tone while blue, green and purple feel cool, however what a lot of people forget is that every colour has warm and cool shades based on the undertones. Generally, undertones involving the next colour round in the wheel will alter the observed temperature, i.e a purple-red is cool while a yellow-green is warm.
This is useful to know when aiming to create a colour scheme involving colours that would ordinarily clash, as the problem can be overcome by altering the shades of the colours used to match the temperature.
It is also interesting how these colours appear depending on the light around them. In a bright light the warm colours will stand out more whilst dim light brings out the cool colours.
Faber Birren
During my research I came across a man named Faber Birren (no relation to the German language, however coincidental). He was born in America in 1900 and made a lot of changes to the way things look now due to his research around colour. His passion for colours led him to drop out of university and continue his own study into colour and its effects. He became a colour consultant for much of his lifetime, hired by companies to increase profits, safety, morale and image. He suggested that machinery be painted bright colours to reduce accidents and tinted one company’s pool-table felt with purple to increase home sales (which was then copied by other companies due to its success). Faber spent a lot of his time collating as much information as he could into over 20 books, including case studies and experiments from other researchers, sometimes accompanied by his own analysis of the results.
Birrenlient Studies
As aforementioned, Birren put a lot of time into his studies, compiling as much colour knowledge and different experiments as he could. I won’t bore you with all the theories about the best smelling colours, instead here are a few of the most fascinating findings.
Imagination plays a huge role in how humans see colour. For example, it was found that certain ‘sensitive’ people could hold an image of a red rectangle in their mind and then actually see a green afterimage, just as humans are inclined to see blue eyes and red hair as more vibrant than they actually are. It is also worth noting that natural daylight changes colour throughout the day, but human eyes simplify this effect, giving the sense that the light looks the same.
Birren comments that most people feel differently about colours based on their personal preferences, so it is difficult to analyse how they affect us psychologically, and when we do so it is important to consider both objective and subjective views. This was evident in a study done by Gilbert Brighouse, comparing coloured lights and human interpretation. He found the majority of people felt green light on objects brought connotations of clarity and nature, whilst green light on a person gave a guilty, ill feeling. That said, Birren also notes that the amount of illumination tends to give more of an impact than hue, with humans being more physically energised in a brighter space, within reason of course – glaring brightness will hinder mental activity!
Lots of studies have been done into colour preference and although, as Birren says, everyone has extremely individual tastes, there have been some trends spotted. Young children will show preference to warm, bright colours such as red and yellow, often picking red objects above others, however as humans age the preference tends towards blue. Alongside the knowledge that human eyes grow yellower with age and hence filter out more blue light, this suggests a ‘want’ for blue in later years. In the end, most adults have a ‘favourite colour’ of either red or blue, with the majority of people placing orange and yellow at the bottom of their preference list. It was also found that extroverted people tended to like red while the more introverted preferred blue.
Conclusion
Of course, there have been hundreds of studies into colours and I barely scratched the surface, but I hope that I have at least sparked your interest in what more colourful trends exist!
Madi
