Today I'm excited to bring you a guest post from Corey Smith.  Besides being a personal friend (and someone I could strong arm into doing a guest post for me) Corey is a print industry veteran with a diverse background in Marketing and Business.  He also scored bonus points because he is a small business owner himself.  If you're interested in today's topic of color, I'd also recommend the HP Labs blog Mostly Color Perception

Copier and printing industry experts assert that within the next few years business will print more color than black & white. Sort of reminds me of the paperless office promise from 1975.

The fact is, color printing is on the rise. I thought I would share the real value of color. What does color do to the emotions? How does it affect us?

First of all, color has different meanings to different cultures. Depending on your background, you may have different emotions that are aroused when you see a particular color. I will share the most common emotions that come to the average North American.  Many of these meanings will carry across cultural boundaries, but I would be curious how you agree or disagree with my assertions here.

Primary Colors:

Red is a very emotionally charged color. It tends to increase the respiration rate and can even raise your blood pressure. It creates excitement and can be associated with danger, war, power, strength passion, desire and love. It can even increase your appetite.

Yellow is the happy color… it is the color of sunshine. It creates a sense of cheerfulness and helps to stimulate mental activity. When yellow is very bright, it can attract attention. It can also provide a very sharp contrast to dark colors. Yellow can have the appearance of being brighter than white if over used and can be disturbing if used too much.

Blue is a trusted color. It can provide a sense of tranquility and security. It tends to symbolize loyalty, wisdom, trust, faith, confidence, and intelligence. While red can help to increase the appetite, blue tends to have the opposite affect and can actually suppress the appetite.

Secondary Colors:

Orange is the combination of the happiness of yellow and the energy and strength of red. It symbolizes creativity, determination, enthusiasm and success. In addition orange indicates affordability. Because of its similarity to red, it is great to promote food.

Green tends to suggest endurance and stability. It represents harmony, growth and freshness. Green indicates safety. Obviously, it is associated with money and wealth. With the interest in “green” products, it is the only color that can promote organic foods and products effectively.

Violet or purple combines the energy and strength of red with the stability of blue. It represents nobility, ambition, power and luxury. It symbolizes extravagance and wealth and is often associated with dignity, independence, wisdom and magic.

Others:

White is purity, goodness, light and innocence. It is considered perfection. White is generally positive and simple. Often it is the color of charitable organizations, low-fat foods and dairy products.

Black is elegant, powerful and formal, but can also be associated with death. In marketing, it is dignified. In certain contexts, black is very negative (blacklist, black humor, etc). It can also denote prestige.