By: David Armano
Today is a great day to ponder how we feel about the color Red. For those of you who love Red—you may be in your glory as every product/greeting you can imagine is sporting the color. For those of you who aren't a big fan of Red, you may be looking forward to tomorrow when it's all over.
Red is a passionate color. Most people have fairly strong feelings about it either way (positive or negative). If you think about it—it makes perfect sense. Aside from being one of the primary color choices—Red can be symbolic of both life or death (blood), power, passion and intensity (fire), or violence (bloodshed).
Red is the color of passion.
Think about the base definition of the word passion. Passion can describe enthusiasm. It can describe violence (crimes of passion). It's an excellent word to describe very strong and intense feelings of some kind.
Passion is the opposite of neutrality
Now here is something interesting. Think about what happens when you take a passionate color like Red and add another color to it? What happens?
For me personally, I feel this:
Red + Black: aggression and power (Darth Maul)
Red + White: romance, and the smell of peppermint (candy canes)
Red + Yellow: Energy, and for some strange reason—Ronald McDonald
How do the color combinations make you feel? How do you feel about Red?
Thoughts about using Red in your brand, product or design should include this:
-Are you trying to make a statement? What is it?
-Are you passionate about something? What?
-If Red represents the heart of your brand—what color represents the soul?
-Why Red?
Think about the "Red" global campaign against AIDS—where the color IS the campaign. Think about the power and passion associated with the movement to rid the world of a horrible disease. Bottom line, if Red is the color of passion as opposed to the color of neutrality—know why you are using it.
Oh yeah. And Happy Valentine's day. 🙂
Original Post: http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2007/02/the_color_of_pa.html
