Facts about colours

Most popular colours

The most popular colours in the Western culture are orange, yellow, red and green. Because of the association with fire the colours red, orange and yellow are perceived as the colours of heat, warmth, desire, lust and longing. Green is the most natural colour as it can be found everywhere in nature.

Orange colour is bright and sparkly, suitable as a signal for danger or a warning about the hot objects. It raises the heart beat, but it doesn't affect blood pressure, it gives a pleasant feeling, a feeling of joy and happiness. It's also perceived as an emotional stimulant, it calms and arouses, however it can also be tiring. Its objective associations are the sunset, fire and fruit (oranges).


Orange colour:       

• on the floor (down): motoric effect,
• on a wall: warm,
• on a ceiling (up): powerful, encouraging, sparkly.

Yellow is the colour of the Sun. It means closeness, superficiality and lowness, and at the same time intrusiveness, extroversion and resilience that can sometimes cross over to irritation. Yellow colour is very well visible so it is a signal for danger, caution. It's a good stimulant for our eyes and hence also for our nervous system – it has a positive effect on it. 

It's also perceived as a mind stimulant and because of that as intellectual, rational. Important feature of the yellow is its communicativeness. We are still using it for painting postal vehicles and mailboxes due to this tradition. Yellow corresponds to the air, which is the medium of communication. It’s light, vivid and happy. White, pink and yellow are colours of small, delicate and gentle things. They can also symbolise naivety. It’s the colour of activity and energy, together in a group with red and orange, and as the colour of light it symbolises the enlightenment as well. In psychological sense it’s the most cheerful colour as, as the colour of the Sun, it expands through the widest visible spectrum.

Yellow colour: on the floor (down):

• exciting, uplifting, temporary,
• on a wall: arousing,
• on a ceiling (up): stimulating.

Red colour is the colour of blood and fire, a symbol of life and love, expression of power, warmth and motion. It creates warmth; its closest infrared thermal rays penetrate deeply into the human tissue. It is why the red is related to the muscular tension, it increases the heart rate, raises blood pressure and rhythm of breathing. It's the colour of vitality and activity, physically and also spiritually. In a physical sense the red is the most obvious colour and therefore always used as a signal for alarm (alert), warning (error) and a Stop sign.

Red is hot and penetrating. It's the colour of vitality. It stimulates intellectual activity and it’s exciting. It gives and impression of loudness, greatness and is sometimes a bit annoying. It’s the most violent colour as it forces you to get active.



Red colour:      

• on the floor (down): impression of greatness, it's burning and representative
• on a wall: loud and close
• on a ceiling (up): intrusive, restless and disquiet

Green colour is the colour of plants and the outside nature. It's fresh and moist, but cold.

It soothes the nervous system so it's also a sedative and hypnotic colour. It lowers blood pressure and makes capillary wider. From the psychological viewpoint it means hope in new activity and life. Green means complete serenity where all contrasts are in balance. 

Because of its tranquillity and passivity the green is the opposite of red, which means activity and disorder. The two colours are complementary.

Even though the objective association of the green colour is the green visible nature (clover, grass, trees...) its emotional associations aren't always pleasant; sometimes it's associated with gloominess and unpleasant events. Symbolism of the green is diverse: truth, faith, trust, renaissance, peace.


Green colour:

• on the floor (down): gentle,
• on a wall: soothing,
• on a ceiling (up): patronising, caring.