What Different Colours Mean

Why do this type of research?

Colours have meaning, this is very obvious but sometimes it can be useful to have a greater understanding about what each colour actually means. This would be immensely useful for when I'm trying to get the colours right for each of my sprites, maybe (for example) the water bottle on the shelf could be blue to imply it's cold, or if it doesn't matter it could be red to stand out more. Below is a full breakdown of the main colours and what they imply.

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Red

Red has distinct connotations of fury, with hints of violence and gore due to it being the colour of human and other animal blood. According to the website linked at the top of the page and in the bibliography, the website also says that red can increase pulse and blood pressure which can be good for catching attention, making it good for things like important items or danger. 

Despite being the colour of blood, red also has connotations of romance, love and passion, possible coming from the red colour of old wedding dresses which symbolised fertility.

List Of Emotions -

• Anger

• Excitement

• Danger

• Curiosity

Blue

The website claims that blue is the most popular colour in the world, also claiming that it is the colour of relaxation and calming. This means that it's quite a good colour for a company logo as it appears trustworthy.

The relation of light blue to the sky on a calm day and the ocean is thought to make light blue a colour of freshness and again calmess, this is compared to dark blue which can be used to show sadness or depression.

List Of Emotions -

• Calm

• Cold

• Relaxation

• Freshness

Green

Green is associated with health and nature due to it being the exact colour of plants, also symbolising prosperitiy, hope, growth and luck. Despite this, the colour green is also linked to poisons, toxicity, envy and death, with superheroes like Poison Ivy using the colour to great effect for sickness with links to puss.

List Of Emotions -

• Envy

• Death

• Sickness

• Illness

Yellow

Yellow relates to the sun and light, it also relates to joy, optimism and warmth. These qualities are shown by the character Joy from Inside Out who wears nearly full yellow with a yellow tinted glow. Despite this, the colour yellow is linked to illness such as puss alongside warning, danger, disgust and madness.

List Of Emotions -

• Joy

• Optimism

• Warmth

• Illness

• Disgust

• Madness

• Danger

• Warning

Purple

Purple has historically been the colour of royalty and luxury. This is because historically it was extremely expensive to produced and so kept for the royal families such as kings and dukes. This colour also has links to things such as mystery, spirituality and magic. This colours links to spirituality and magic means that it is also linked to negative thing such as delusion, deceptions and illusions

List Of Emotions -

• Deception

• Illusions

• Delusions

• Magic

• Spirituality

• Mystery

• Royalty

• Luxury

Conclusion

The main conclusion I have come to is that by using certain colours I can develop certain atmospheres and imply particular things. This can be as simple as having blue scattered around at the start of the game to imply relaxation and at night highlight the reds, blacks, greens and pale yellows to manipulate the player into feeling all sorts of negative emotions. 

Key things I could get the player to understand is the illness, delusions, illusions and fear coming from the prior mentioned colours. This could possibly make the game feel higher quality and be more effective.