What your color choices say about your business
Get this: People make up their minds about products within 90 seconds, with 62–90% of their assessment based on colors alone. Colors also have staying power—you probably instantly recognize the bold colors of the Google logo or the Home Depot logo’s bright orange.
Swiss psychologist Carl Jung is considered the pioneer of color psychology. He believed that colors carried specific meanings, and he identified six fundamental color principles:
- Color carries meaning.
- Color meaning is based on either a learned meaning or something more innate.
- The perception of a color incites automatic evaluation by the person perceiving.
- The evaluation leads to color-motivated behavior.
- Color usually exerts its influence automatically.
- Context also plays a role in color meaning and effect.
Modern interpretations of Jung’s theories attach emotions to specific colors. For example, red indicates excitement, energy, and passion, while green captures nature, healing, and freshness.
To put it simply, color influences our thoughts—and this often happens subconsciously. Need proof? Fast food chains use color to make you feel hungry. This is why McDonald’s, Burger King, Hardee’s, and Wendy’s (to name a few) use red and yellow.
Of course, it’s not a perfect science—green can also represent envy, for example. But it’s worth remembering that the colors you choose will elicit certain emotions and perceptions whether people are consciously aware of it or not.