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Watch that swatch.

by Lisa Baudry

We know that brand differentiation and brand values play a crucial role in our colour choices as graphic designers, but equally important are the cultural traditions and colour trends that influence our choices.

Cultural Colours: True Blue or True Pink?

Here’s a colour breakdown of sixteen New Zealand brands from a range of sectors (Fonterra, Telecom, Progressive Entrerprises, Carter Holt Harvey, All Blacks, Kiwi Bank, BNZ, Fletcher Building, Fisher and Paykel, Air New Zealand, Silver Fern Farms, The Warehouse, 2 Degrees, Auckland Airport and Westpac)

Lots of greens and blues huh. In New Zealand we take for granted the solid reliability associated with a colour like blue. I find it fascinating that in Korea the equivalent would actually be a pastel colour like pink. With an increasingly ethnic diverse population and strong trading links with Asia it certainly pays for do some research before choosing a colour palette for a brand, especially one that will be working outside of New Zealand.

Here are some links on colour meanings in different cultures:

http://www.sibagraphics.com/colour.php
http://webdesign.about.com/od/colorcharts/l/bl_colorculture.htm
http://www.sailorastera.com/articles/3.html

Do you have any examples of where you’ve had to work cross-culturally and needed to modify or re-think colour selections?

Colour non-conformists and new colour trends.

Although in the design arena, we are often constrained by the market and its preferences, there is plenty of proof in history that artists and designers play a role in revolutionising cultural perceptions of colour.

Take Vincent Van Gogh, he sort of maxed out the saturation on what would otherwise have been fairly traditional dutch paintings. If anyone has visited the Rikjs Museum in Amsterdam and immersed themselves in the Dutch painting tradition – the rich blacks, browns, ochre and reds of those paintings and then gone next door to the Van Gogh Museum will suddenly realize why the Dutch thought he was gone in the head. It was because of his colour palette. He was still painting domestic scenes, interiors, trees but he was doing them in techni-colour.

Or Coco Chanel, who outrageously wore and designed clothing with colours such as grey and black, colours only found in mens clothing of the day. High society women at that time were all gadding about in pastels and cream. These days it’s hard to imagine womens fashion without the quintessential black dress, but it took a radical move from a radical designer to change this.

Concept-led colour choice

Perhaps one way to break out of ‘tried and true’ combinations is to let the concept drive our colour choices in a creative way. One studio I freelanced in did this and the result was stunning. They were working on a brand for a group of winemakers who lived in a particular geographic region. The colour palette they proposed for the brand was derived from actual samples taken from the soil from that region. Some beautiful ochres, burnt siennas and deep browns. The printer matched these colours and mixed inks especially. I love the idea that the colours were born from, and consistent with the overall concept, not an afterthought or something that had worked before.

Do you have any examples where you let the concept lead that resulted in a more unusual or unique colour scheme solution?

Online Colour Tools and Inspiration.

Both ColourMod and ColorJack also have colour widgets for your dashboard. Coloria has an exhaustive and inspiring list of colours and colour names. Kuler and Colourlovers are colour community sites, places where designers can share colour palettes.

http://colourmod.com/dashboard/
http://www.colorjack.com/sphere/
http://www.coloria.net/bonus/colornames.htm

http://kuler.adobe.com
http://www.colourlovers.com

I’m not sure if graphic designers can have a radical influence on colour taste but I do think that as designers, the more we make ourselves aware of colour preferences, traditions and perceptions present in the markets we are designing for, the more we can seek to offer diverse colour solutions to our clients.