If you are like me, when I create a cover for my journals, I can spend hours looking for images I think would look good BUT I don’t spend any time looking at the colors.
I have recently come across a few articles which have changed how I look at colors. Like most of us, we know that red means danger and green is restful, but I have now learnt that different colors have different psychological effects on us. So, I thought I would share what I found out so maybe you can use it for choosing colors for your covers.
How are colors used?
Here’s a few interesting facts that may make you look at your environment differently.
- Colors meanings are not the same for everyone. Their meanings can depend on context and culture. Here’s an example. In my culture black is the color of mourning but in other cultures, it is white. This implies color meanings can be learnt.
- Not all color meanings are learnt, they can also be a biological function, so the meaning is similar across all cultures.
- Behaviour can be changed by color.
- Colors can influence people automatically.
- Your favorite color can say a lot about your personality.
- Colors are used by designers to create working environments, reduce street crime, affect the effectivity of Placebo drugs, in fact all through our lives without us being aware.
What do colors mean?
Here are a few ideas to see how colors imply different things,
White – Openness, unity, and integrity.
Pink – Friendliness, maturity, and femininity
Red – Leadership, destruction and dynamic
Yellow – Intelligence, originality, and dexterity
Orange – Tolerance, freedom, and energy
Grey – Realism, depression, and sadness
Purple – Sensuality, idealism, and repentance
Black – Creation, suppression, and foresight
Green – Stability, jealousy, and progress
Pale Blue – Calm, carelessness and surprisingly reliability
Mid Blue – Subordination, idealism, and steadfastness
Brown – Reliability, disappointment, and common sense.
So how to use this knowledge?
When you are creating a cover, think about your target audience and use colors applicable to what you want to convey. We do this subconsciously all the time – white for weddings, red for something more adventurous, pink for girly books. Now we can look a bit deeper and make some color options available for our covers to convey a subconscious meaning that the buyer may pick up on.
If you want to know more about creating color schemes or when to find color pallets , have a look at my course Creativity for the Terrified.