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Colour Justification

Writer's picture: Tayen LambTayen Lamb
Sep 4, 20183 min read

Updated: Dec 27, 2018


Image Source: Unsplash, 2018a


"Everything is about color. If you look at magazines and advertising and television, the thing you remember is the color."- Kelly Wearstler

For my colour palette choice, I was inspired by Brisbane’s city colours. Every year, for the Brisbane Festival, the city is lit up in a vibrant pink which contrasts against the dark night sky. This was the start of the inspiration for my colour palette for my website. Additionally, throughout the year I also see blues, greens, oranges and purples lit up on the bridges and on the Casino, which further inspired the rest of my colour palette. Since I have grown up in Brisbane and love this city, I thought using the cities colours was also a good representation of who I am. Additionally, the pink and black colour themes are a reference to my first degree in the creative Industries in which we were required to wear black and pink gowns for graduation.


I used a black background with a dark grey centre panel and used colour to create visual impact and highlight areas of interest. Although black is typically associated with darkness, the unknown, death and sometimes gloom it is also a colour that represents luxury, sophistication, formality and mystery (Gross, 2018 & KD Web Digital Agency, 2018). Black also gives the feeling of perspective and depth, contrasts well with bright colours and implies independence and strong will (Rikard, 2015 & Media Star Media Group, 2014). Grey on the other hand is an unemotional colour, is a bit more neutral but still has a dramatic and mysterious vibe, while being solid and stable. It is conventional, reliable and practical that contributes to new and positive energy (Olesen, 2017). Since black diminishes readability, grey was used in the inner panel for visual impact and to ensure the page was easier to read (Rikard, 2015). The bright pink colours were used to represent a feeling of youthfulness, energy, fun and excitement and tied with the blacks and greys keeps it modern, without being too girly and captures the audience’s attention (Gross, 2018). White was used to break up the colour contrast, to increase readability and to create a sense of ‘freshness’ on the page. White can be quite neutral and often represents new beginnings, creativity, positivity, simplicity and goodness (KD Web Digital Agency, 2018). Additionally, white can represent a successful beginning, has positive connotations and gives an objective impression of youthfulness (Rikard, 2015). It was used in the blog pages as large amounts of text can be hard to read on dark backgrounds and it also breaks up the design to give the viewer a new point of interest.


The saturated colour panels were used as a signifier to highlight different content/ material. Purple was used because it portrays a feeling of intelligence, artistic, femineity and mystery (KD Web Digital Agency, 2018). Green was used because of its association with reliability, optimism, growth, honesty and good energy (KD Web Digital Agency, 2018). Orange was used as it communicates activity, energy, vibrancy, youthfulness, creativity, enthusiasm and ambition (Gross, 2018 & KD Web Digital Agency, 2018). Whilst the bright, light blue was used to create feelings of reliability, trustworthiness, loyalty, determination and stability (Gross, 2018 & KD Web Digital Agency, 2018). These colours were used together to create that overall feeling of boldness, creativity, youthfulness & positivity. They contrast against the dark background and the bright pinks to create a point of interest and also pay homage to the advertising industry, which often use bright, bold colours to attract audience attention.

Image source: Unsplash, 2018b


References:


Gross, R. (2018). Color meaning and symbolism: How to use the power of color in your branding. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com/learn/color-meanings-symbolism/


KD Web Digital Agency. (2018.). The meaning of colours in design. Retrieved from https://www.kdweb.co.uk/blog/meaning-colours-design


Media Star Media Group. (2013). The meaning of colour in graphic design. Retrieved from http://morningstarmediagroup.com/the-meaning-of-color-in-graphic-design/


Olesen, J. (2017). Gray color meaning- The color gray. Retrieved from https://www.color-meanings.com/gray-color-meaning-the-color-gray/


Rikard. (2015). The psychology of color: A designer’s guide to color association & meaning. Retrieved from https://zevendesign.com/color-association/




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