How to Use Color Effectively in Your Designs | CreativePro.

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How to Use Color Effectively in Your Designs

In these striking examples, you'll see how color affects the mood of a piece, and how it interacts with other elements of the designs.
Written by Lauren Krause on November 23, 2009

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Categories: Graphics, Print, Print Design & Layout, Web Design & Layout, Features

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Color can strongly influence the mood of a design. You probably know that, but have you ever wondered how one color can have two or more meanings? Red, for example, can mean love but it can also represent aggression, danger, or violence. With all of those feelings associated with the color red, how do you know when it says which and what will be the connotation of red in your design? That's where you have to take all the other elements of design into account. Pay attention to the color's value, or saturation. And are elements such as line, texture, or shape pointing to certain moods or feelings that the design is suppose to elicit? Other important influences on the mood a color evokes are the quantity and placement of that color in the design, as well as other dominant colors in the composition. Color theory (complementary colors, triads, etc.) plays a big role and can guide you to appropriate combinations. You can also look to historical uses of colors and combinations.

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The Influence of Value Value is not color, nor is it contrast. Value is tone and has to do with light and dark. The visual spectrum of value ranges from black to white. It can dramatically alter the mood of a design depending on the amount of contrast present.
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A great example of the influence value has on color is to compare red and pink. These two colors come from the same hue, but they give two completely different connotations because of pink's tint (addition of white). Red is a much more grown-up color than pink. Red has mature feelings associated with it (love, rage), where pink tends to conjure images of Barbie or cupcakes. Yet even within the color red, there's a wide range of emotions. How are you to tell if your piece will project passion or danger? The example below from Taryn Rose has the caption "Comfortably Sexy." Its deep, rich shades of red make this a very passionate ad. The hue of red also leans more towards a blue-red than an orange-red. This is an important distinction.

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Contrast the Taryn Rose ad with this next piece from ConAgra Foods. Sure, the caption says "Office Romance," but does that red say romantic to you? It probably doesn't because it's an orange-red. Orange and red are both warm colors and give this particular hue a more cheerful mood than a steamy, sexy mood like the Taryn Rose red. And it's supposed to; this ConAgra ad is much more playful and light-hearted than the Taryn Rose one.

Yellow is a youthful, warm, sunny, cheerful color that can also symbolize danger, attention, and caution. The Denver Center Theater used a shade of yellow in its poster for A Raisin in the Sun, below. Adding black to yellow can be tricky -- it can quickly turn to a mushy, unpleasant brown. This yellow is the perfect shade for the mood of the play because it's neither overly sunny nor cheerful, but on the whole, it's still optimistic.

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The most obvious use of yellow for danger or caution is the notorious CAUTION tape, which can also come in a POLICE LINE -DO NOT CROSS edition. Though it may be an overused design element, it works. It elicits the message it's supposed to. Darwin plastered its annual report cover with caution tape to tell the audience that the company is conservative and careful. Yellow might not be the first choice for that mood, but it's successful in combination with the tape motif. Notice that "caution" yellow is pure, bright, and bold. This is yellow in its truest form.

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The Truvia green feels natural, refreshing, and delicious. It uses a combination of a fairly pure hue of green and tints (adding white to hue) to give it a dynamic yet unified mood. This green is slightly inclined towards a yellow-green, too, and that makes it feel like a fresh, new green.

The Milliemelisse branding is a great example of how adding a tint of green can turn a mood from new/inexperienced to fresh and slightly upscale. Children are new and inexperienced and using a purer hue of green like the Truvia green would have convey the wrong message to the audience. Instead, the designers from Paper Stone Scissors used a less vibrant green; the result is a design that feels child-oriented without negative connotations. This green also leans more towards blue/aqua instead of yellow, and that also steers us away from a "newer" feeling green.

The Influence of Other Colors Red and blue by themselves are almost opposite in their meanings. Red, as I've noted, can create a mood of passion, love, rage, or danger. Blue can be stable, calm, trustworthy, or depressing. Combine them and you conjure the mood of two opposing teams. But add white and the mix goes from opposites to something that's unified and (depending on where you're from) patriotic.

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Again, red by itself may evoke love, anger, or danger, but partner it with the right shade of green and you can't help but be reminded of Christmas.

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Quick! What came to your mind when you saw the ad above? What was your first thought? McDonald's? The Golden Arches have such a firm grasp on red with yellow accents that it's difficult to pull an audience's initial reaction to this combination away from the McDonald's connotation. The Influence of Subject Matter Sometimes designers and artists like to juxtapose subject matter and other elements in the composition, like color. There has been a growing trend towards associating pink, especially neon pink, with punk rock. Since Barbie has long been identified with a bright pink, it's interesting to note that examples like this poster don't remind us at all of the blonde doll.

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It's also possible to use a color in a way that's against its traditional meaning. This Kinesio ad does that quite effectively. It's as if by using pink it's saying it fully wants to be associated with the female athlete, but let's turn the idea of "female athlete" on its head.

You know that color is critical in determining the mood of a design, and now you understand how color interacts with so many other variables to nail down that mood. Using tints and shades of a color play a role in the projected mood every bit as much as the hue itself. In your next project, be aware of how color combinations and other elements of design like line, shape, and texture can influence the atmosphere, too.

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