BLUE

2021年3月25日 10:21

Welcome back to the Color Psychology series!
I hope the first article gave you a brief introduction about what Color Psychology is and from now on I am going to introduce one color in each article starting with the color blue!
If you are interested in Color Psychology but haven't read the article about it here is the link: https://note.com/grand_design/n/nf5cc40368b17

...What YInMn has to do with and why the sky was not always colored like it…blue. Even today its story continues to evolve, since the latest shade was discovered less than a decade ago! Read on to learn more about the fascinating color!

Blue’s color meaning ties closely to nature which are the sea and the sky.
How we see the color in general and how we perceive blue especially underlies tremendous differences depending on our cultural backround, how we have been brought up, our language etc. So before trying to broaden your horizon when it comes to the concept of blue - I want to start with some facts and general information!

Blue is one of the three primary colors of pigments in traditional color theory and also in the RGB color model. On the spectrum of visible light it lies between violet and green. „The eye perceives blue when observing light with a dominant wavelength between approximately 450 and 495 nanometers.“
( In wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue )

Blue seems to affects us mentally in many different ways depending on the the shade itself but also the context or situation it is used within.
European and also American surveys have shown, that blue often is associated with harmony, faithfulness, confidence, distance and infinity. Lighter and very saturated shades of blue especially call feelings of calmness or serenity to our minds. They can also help us to think more logically, bring clarity to our thought and help us focusing: we feel peaceful, concentrated and settled.

There’s a reason we think of blue as relaxing:
it tends to lower our heart rates, blood pressure, and even our body temperature. Blue can have an effect on the pituitary gland, affecting our sleep patterns, and it can slow our breathing as well. Studies of memory have demonstrated that memory is enhanced by blue light, and blue light can even kill some bacteria!

On the other hand dark shades leaning towards black or dark violet in general makes us feel unsettled or afraid and connect to meanings like sadness, cold or depression. Also the color blue is the least common color in the foods we eat. There is actually no such thing as blue food – and if you’re about to say blueberries, take a closer look: they’re purple. Blue has very few connections to taste or smell. This is the reason why it may act as an effective appetite suppressant! When we see blue food, we instinctively think it’s poisonous and unsafe. When ancient humans were foraging for food, blue, purple and black were "color warning signs" of potentially lethal food.

Blue also has significant religious meanings all around the world.
In India blue is the color of the Hindu goddess Krishna and represents for most people love and divine joy. Also the goddess Vishnu and Shiva, are all depicted as having blue skin. Ancient Egypt associated blue with divinity and the sky. The „King of Gods“ Amun, chief deity of the Egyptian Empire, would turn his skin blue in order to fly invisibly across the sky.
Ultramarine became associated with holiness and virtue when during the 12th century in Western countries the Roman Catholic Church insisted in the 12th century, that painters color the Virgin Mary with the new, with the at the time one of the most expensive pigment imported from Asia.

Have you already looked at the sky today? Probably it has a kind of bluish shade, right? Sometimes there might be more clouds, it might have a more purplish shade or even yellowish depending on the weather, in which region you life in or the daytime. The sky has - that’s what scientists found out - actually not always been true for humans.

Blue is the most rare color in nature which is why most of the products that are blue in our modern society are technically produced. Being only able to see black, white, red, and only later yellow and green, modern scientists believe that the earliest humans were actually colorblind. Since they were not able to perceive it, they of course also had no concept of the color blue and simply had no words to describe it. This also had a huge influence on ancient literature. For example in Homer’s Odyssey, he describes things that for is are obviously blue - in many different colors mainly red or yellow tones - for example the ocean as a “wine-red sea.”

But how was blue "invented" then?
How did we found out it even existed?
Around 2,200 B.C. the ancient Egyptians were the first ones who created a permanent blue pigment. A lot of decorative artworks but also famous jewelry etc. were from that point of time made in Egyptian blue.
Blue is to be considered the first ever synthetically produced color pigment. Ground limestone mixed with sand and a copper-containing mineral, such as azurite or malachite, were the basic materials which became heated an opaque blue glass. It was used as a base ingredient for pigments which were used to paint ceramics, little statues and so on.
There are many well researched sources in the internet about colors and each of their history and interesting facts. Please feel free to have a look at the websites listed below.

No this is not a short version of a text messages used by the young generations on tictoc twitter or some kind of gamer language! A new shade of blue was accidentally discovered in 2009 at the Oregon State University by Prof. Mas Subramanian and his then graduate student Andrew E. Smith. While exploring new materials for making electronics, Smith discovered that one of his samples turned bright blue when heated. Named YInMn blue, after its chemical makeup of yttrium, indium, and manganese, they released the pigment for commercial use in June 2016.

YInMn blue or "MasBlue" has a vibrant, near-perfect blue color and unusually high NIR reflectance. The pigment contains the elements Yttrium, Indium, Manganese, and Oxygen.

Discovering new brilliant blue which is heat reflecting, thermally stable, and a UV absorbing pigment made the scientists search for more other colors. Since then researches at the Oregon State University have been expanded and the team around Prof. Mas Subramanian created several other new pigments to include almost every color!

What actually are the feelings your customer may feel about your brand when you integrate the color blue into your design or branding?
I want to introduce you to some brands which use blue for their brand.
Not surprisingly, the color blue is the most universally preferred colors of all, and for that reason, is probably the safest color for businesses to use for branding. Blue is sharply refracted by the eyes. This causes the lens to flatten and to literally push the blue image back. We perceive that blue areas appear to be receding and smaller. The same refraction causes „visual fog“ if used excessively in interior spaces. Just to mention a view of them that came to my mind immediately when thinking of blue brand logos:

- Banks / finance related
American Express, Bank of America, Visa, PayPal, bitcoin
- Communication or tech related
Facebook, Skype, Zoom, Twitter, Bluetooth,
AOL, Intel
Philips, Samsung, hp, Dell, Zeiss, Dropbox, Vimeo, Nokia
- Transportation
Expedia, Boeing, Airbus, Lufthansa
VW, Ford, BMW, Mazda
- Skincare
Nivea, Oral-B, Gilette
- Sports
Asics, Columbia
- Food
Nestle, Unilever, Danone, Oreo,

links to some of the blue logos:

https://network9.biz/blue-is-the-hue-for-logos/

All these companies use blue in order to wanting their products to bee seen as very trustworthy, reliable and stable. Brands that offer tech related services like Facebook, Skype, Twitter and Zoom often use blue in their marketing for this reason. Furthermore blue is often used for a website’s top navigation or services like free shipping icons etc. in a blue color in order to strengthen the aspect of being trustworthy the color is know for.

On the contrary using the certain shades of blue - it can bring a certain kind of coldness to your design which may cause also some negative color meanings such as depression or appear to be more reserved.