I Love Color

April 6, 2012 | 1 Comment

I love color. I love it because it’s exciting and energizing. I love it because it’s physical and sensual. I love it because it’s emotional and expressive. I love it because it’s interesting – scientifically, historically, socially, psychologically. I love color because you can look at it literally, abstractly, or symbolically. I love color because it has a rich history and diverse cultures and people have done such different things with it, but somehow I can connect with most of the things they’ve done with it, even if I don’t have the same culture or language. I love color because it’s a language that we can all do so much with.

Do you love color too?

What will you do with color today?

(Don’t think for a second that I don’t like black and white or gray; they’re some of my favorite colors!)

Read / view more on color theory here.

Read / view more on color psychology here.

Category: Uncategorized
Tags: Color, color psychology, color theory

The Temperature of Color – Warm or Cool

May 27, 2011 | 3 Comments

An essential quality of color is temperature. Temperature can be used to attain a color balance. Temperature can be used to enhance spatial relationships within an image. Temperature can be used to elicit psychological responses within the viewer. Understanding and exploring the dynamics of temperature in color can benefit any visual artist.

There are physical characteristics of color linked to temperature. The color temperature of light (Kelvin degrees) is determined by measuring a black body radiator (an object heated so that it emits light). As the physical temperature of the object rises, color transitions from red (long wavelengths – low energy) to blue (short wavelengths – high energy) through ROYGBIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). When it comes to light sources, physically, blue is warmer than red.

There are also psychological qualities of color linked to temperature. Psychologically, blue is cooler than red. These associative qualities of color with regard to temperature are almost universally accepted. This is due in large part to our physical environment – water is blue, plants are green, sunshine is yellow, fire is red.

Using the qualities of one sense (touch) to describe the qualities of another (sight) can be a tenuous affair and may lead to ambiguity and confusion. The more precise a language is the more useful it is. The language of HSL (hue, saturation, luminosity) is a very precise language. When using the language of HSL, hue values mark a position measured in degrees on a color wheel. A circle has 360 degrees, so the scale is 0 – 359.

Cymbolism – Color Psychology

February 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment

cymbolism
Find out what colors people associate with words.
For instance, a majority of voters associated the word God with white.
Choose a color for a word, then find out how other people voted.
Explore it here.

Check out my Color Psychology posts.

Learn more in my DVDs and Power of Color Workshop.

Category: Color
Tags: Color, color psychology, Cymbolism

TestColor – Color Personality Test

February 4, 2010 | 1 Comment

testcolorpsychtest

What does color reveal about your personality?
Find out here.

Take the Luscher Color Test and compare.

Check out my Color Psychology posts.

Learn more in my DVDs and Power of Color Workshop.

Category: Color
Tags: Color, color psychology, lushcer color test, personality, testcolor

Luscher Color Test

September 29, 2009 | 6 Comments

The Luscher Color Test was devised by psychologict Max Luscher in 1969. It’s effectiveness has been known in advertising and industry (automotive and fashion) for years. Now you can gain some pracitalc insight into color psychology with this well-known color test – online.

It’s uncanny what this test can reveal (consistently), but remember it’s just a starting point. What’s far more revealing is your unique living relationship with color, which is revealed over time and in a variety of contexts under many influences. Awareness is the key. Use this as food for thought for developing insight into your relationship with color.

Take the test here.

What did the test reveal for you?

Comment here!

Read my articles on color at Apple here.

Check out my free color downloads here.

Check out my color DVDs here.

Learn about color in my workshops here.

Check out my color sessions at PhotoShop World and PhotoPlus East.

Category: Color
Tags: Color, color psychology, color test, luscher

Color Psychology

September 28, 2009 | 2 Comments

I’m making a series of blog posts that briefly describes many of the classic responses to colors. This material will be repurposed in my ebooks, DVD, seminars, and workshops. Your responses here may be featured there – anonymously. I invite you to participate. All you have to do is comment. Write the first words or phrases that come to mind when you look at each color. Then see how similar or different they are from other readers’ responses.

For more on color psychology …

Category: Color
Tags: Color, color psychology