Associations of hues

Over time, groups of people come to link specific concepts/ideas to certain colours. Sometimes these colour-idea bonds seem to happen almost by decree, for example, when a political party decides to adopt a colour or a colour of a particular thing becomes immediately symbolic (remember when yellow umbrellas were a sign of dissent in Hong Kong?), and other times links build up more naturally and over more time.

Not all groups tie the same concepts/ideas to the same colour, so it’s important to spend time with user groups, or, if you’re designing for yourself, ask yourself some very pointed questions, to learn what seeing certain colours may bring to mind. Examples abound of different sorts of associations present in different user groups. For instance, many of us tend to link the colour pink to femininity and blue to masculinity, but that isn’t even true for all European cultures, let alone worldwide.

Associations to particular hues identified by particular groups include:

• In countries where Europeans make up most of the population the colour white is associated with purity but in East Asia it is the colour of death.

• In the US, the colour blue is tied to trustworthiness, dependability, competence, and masculinity; in Sweden to coldness, and to the Dutch it means “warmth.” In Japan it is also associated with trustworthiness and dependability and the same goes for Korea and China, where it is also linked to “high quality.”

• In the US green is tied to “good taste” and nature/environmental friendliness (as is blue), while in Malaysia the associations are to disease. In the US and Japan green also signals “adventure.”

• In the US, red is “love” and in China it is “love” and “lucky,” while in Chad and Nigeria and Germany it is unlucky.

• Yellow signals infidelity in France and trustworthiness in China. Worldwide, it is also often linked to the idea of “joy” (particularly by people living further from the equator and in rainier climates), but that does not mean seeing it makes people joyful.

• Orange, in the US, is related to being inexpensive and also unsophisticated.

• In China, South Korea and the US, purple “means” love, while in Japan the associations are to sin and in Mexico to anger.

• For black, in Western cultures links are to death/grief and for many fears, while in China they are too powerful and expensive, as they are in South Korea.