Red Color Meanings
The color meanings of red includes pleasure, desire, vitality, will to win, love of sports and the survival instinct. The “warm” colors red, orange and yellow are considered to be stimulating colors.
Orange Color Meanings
The color meanings of orange are creativity, confidence, intuition, friendliness and the entrepreneurial spirit.
Yellow Color Meanings
The color meanings of yellow are enthusiasm, cheerfulness, sense of humor, fun, optimism and intellectuality.
Green Color Meanings
The color meanings of green are perseverance, patience, growth and healing. Green is also related to work, wealth, and career. In the United States, our money is green. Green is a highly adaptable color that lends itself in interior design to areas for children, especially places where learning takes place.
Blue Color Meanings
The color meanings of blue are related to freedom, strength and new beginnings. Blue skies mean optimism and better opportunities. Blue is cooling and relaxing. Blue symbolizes water, the source of life. Agricultural people have traditionally worshipped water in the form of rivers, clouds, mist and rain.
Indigo Color Meanings
The color meanings of indigo are wisdom, self-mastery and spiritual attainment. Indigo has an inward rather than an outward orientation. Indigo connects the conscious and unconscious minds. Indigo should not be used for a person who is depressed, as it can also deepen negative moods.
Violet Color Meanings
The color meanings of violet are the psychological quality of transformation, transmutation and the balance of power and love. Additional meanings include charisma, charm, magical abilities and tolerance.
Color Mixing and the Meaning of Colors
There is an infinite array of colors that are variations on the basic colors of the spectrum. Yellow, blue and red are primary colors and are mixed to create secondary colors: green, orange and purple. From there, tertiary colors are created that are combination of the secondary colors: yellow-green, orange-yellow, orange-red, etc.
Each of these colors have slightly different meanings. These secondary and tertiary colors are usually colors that appeal to adults, as they tend to be more sophisticated colors. The meanings of tertiary colors and complex colors are usually based on the colors from which they have been mixed.
Additional colors can be also created by adding white to make a tint or black to make a shade. These colors also have their own generally accepted meanings in color symbolism. Black, for example, symbolizes death and grieving
Pink is related to warmth and love, gentleness, beauty, and an outward orientation. White means purity, inner illumination and spirituality. White softens the sometimes harsh impact of red.
Pink is a more sophisticated color than red, which often makes it more appealing to most adults than pure red. Pink is also gentler and more appropriate for healing. Variations of pink can be used to relieve depression. As the color of warmth and love, pink is a comforting color meaning gentleness and beauty while encouraging motion and an outward orientation.
Designers like to give variations of these colors attractive names of their own rather than calling them "orange-red" and so forth. Thus, colors are named fuchsia, aqua and turquoise. For consumer appeal, complex colors are often given even longer names: light sea green, deep royal blue and rich chocolate brown.
