Kidson Talks | The E-commerce Chemist

Colour symbolism and psychology refer to the use of colour as a symbol or emotional effect throughout cultures, religions, art and nature. We can also use that psychology to choose a colour scheme for web or eBay design using its effect on customer behaviour and feeling.

Grey – Grey is often used as a subtle complimentary colour to your main colour. It reflects stability, neutrality, elegance and balance. A pink and grey combination is very feminine, suitable for specifically female products and seen quite often for example : http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Hair-Angels/

White – White is seen to represent purity, peace, innocence, cleanliness and simplicity. This colour is widely used in western cultures for spa or health related designs. When white is combined with either green or blue gives a clean relaxed feel. If you are marketing to eastern cultures though, white can also mean death.

Black – Black symbolizes power, modernism, sophistication as well as mystery. Black combines will with all colours and used quite often to compliment most themes that maybe need a stronger approach. The combination of yellow and black is often used for power tool designs or very male orientated style product design such as http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Bling-Bling-Online/

In western cultures black is also synonymous with death and sorrow so should be cleverly combined with other colours to prevent this association.

Red – Red says passion, strength, energy, fire and love. On its own can induce feelings of anger or danger but combined with neutral and calming colours like white and grey can project a very corporate image and can be a very safe combination. Red is a lucky colour in China, but too much red should be avoided.

Blue – You can see blue on designs that promote peace, unity, harmony, tranquillity, calmness and coolness. Blue is a very popular colour in designs relating to water or heath like bathroom products like http://stores.ebay.co.uk/BATHTEK and http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Bathrooms-and-Taps-Direct. Bathtek have used a darker blue and also black to create a more modern and technological feel to their design whereas Better bathrooms have opted for a softer approach. Both of these combinations work well and will appeal to different types of buyer.

Light blue is associated with baby boys and great for nursery and baby related designs.

Green – Greens make you think firstly of your garden, the environment, growth, nature but also money and envy. Money related site often use green to scream their purpose at you. Green means money more so in the USA due to the US dollar being green. Green is a lucky colour in Ireland. Green is used a lot in for golfing products for example http://stores.ebay.co.uk/ElectraGolf and also gardening and plant related products.

Yellow – Sunshine, joy, optimism, intelligence, and idealism can all be associated with the colour yellow. Yellow is difficult colour to manage for designs so it is usually combined with more than one other colour or shade: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Garage-Equipment-Group

Purple – Purple is the colour of flamboyance, sensuality, spirituality, creativity and nobility. Purple is a popular female colour and is used in the Gothic culture quite extensively.

Orange – An energetic refreshing colour, suggesting balance, heat, fire, enthusiasm, flamboyance and playfulness. Orange is a difficult colour to use with design. Orange and brown is used for 1970’s retro designs, and should be used to compliment other colours rather than dominate them. Orange is symbolic of autumn and religion for example Buddhism.

Brown – Brown is an earthy colour, dependable and natural. Brown has richness, stability, depth and rustic feel to it. Combined with colours (rather than shades) it can stabilise a colour or provide a retro feel, popular in furniture and DIY housing products. The brown and cream combination is a staple contemporary home colour, used in a lot of living rooms in the UK.

Pink – Associated primarily with the female population in western culture it suggests gratitude, appreciation, admiration, sympathy, femininity, health, love. Used with black it has a very alternative punk feel: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Front-Clothing

Pink is used to represent delicate products with intricacy and detail. Pink is a very approachable colour.

This is not a definitive guide to colour psychology with respect to web and eBay design as different cultures have different representations for colour and colours have a multitude of emotional responses associated with them. It is best to research your product type and find out which colour combination fits your customer type and the buying experience you want.

This post has lots of links to Frooition created designs as I am currently developing articles for our company blog. This is the first draft of this post but would appreciate opinions on the theories and content so I can refine this article for posting on the company blog. You can ‘ping’ this post and I will allow comments for a short time (unless I get oodles of spamola). I am not a colour psychologist but I am a web buyer and these are my feelings as well as a little research throughout the web. I need some more colour combination examples relating to a specific product. This post is to help with the design decision process Froo customers have to make. In theory anyway!

A few colour combination no-no’s would be fun also!