The Color of Passion

Today is a great day to ponder how we feel about the color Red.  For those of you who love Red—you may be in your glory as every product/greeting you can imagine is sporting the color.  For those of you who aren't a big fan of Red, you may be looking forward to tomorrow when it's all over.

Red is a passionate color.  Most people have fairly strong feelings about it either way (positive or negative).  If you think about it—it makes perfect sense.  Aside from being one of the primary color choices—Red can be symbolic of both life or death (blood), power, passion and intensity (fire),  or violence (bloodshed).

Red is the color of passion.

Think about the base definition of the word passion.  Passion can describe enthusiasm.  It can describe violence (crimes of passion).  It's an excellent word to describe very strong and intense feelings of some kind. 

Passion is the opposite of neutrality

Now here is something interesting.  Think about what happens when you take a passionate color like Red and add another color to it?  What happens?

For me personally, I feel this:

Red + Black: aggression and power (Darth Maul)
Red + White: romance, and the smell of peppermint (candy canes)
Red + Yellow: Energy, and for some strange reason—Ronald McDonald

How do the color combinations make you feel?  How do you feel about Red?

Thoughts about using Red in your brand, product or design should include this:
-Are you trying to make a statement?  What is it?
-Are you passionate about something?  What?
-If Red represents the heart of your brand—what color represents the soul?
-Why Red?

Think about the "Red" global campaign against AIDS—where the color IS the campaign.  Think about the power and passion associated with the movement to rid the world of a horrible disease.  Bottom line, if Red is the color of passion as opposed to the color of neutrality—know why you are using it. 

Oh yeah.  And Happy Valentine's day.  :)

Comments

[Nathan Gilliatt]

Funny, the red and black combination immediately made me think of sports cars and all that goes with them (think Griot's Garage). Red, yellow, black, white... sounds like a Ferrari dealership. :-)

[Doug Karr]

I utilized red in my last blog theme and the reaction was slightly negative... it was combined with black, yellows, and oranges (like flames). I've since gone back to blue - it gets a lot more positive feedback.

In some ways, I believe it's a 'startling' color. I hate to make the connection... but blood.

[Michael Wagner]

David - thoughtful post and helpful.

This helps me make sense of Tom Peter's blog and logo.

Red as the dominant color with white accent.

A very passionate thinker and communicator who also has a strong hint of the romantic idealist in all he says and writes.

Keep creating,
Mike

[Valeria Maltoni]

Red and white are my favorite combination. If you add green... you may have a certain country flag;-)

Red is also the color of the women's heart awareness campaign. White is my favorite color -- the sum of all colors of the spectrum. Red is the color that best suits me. I'll adopt Mike's take on the colors!

White is calming, red is exciting -- Nathan has it right on the Ferrari.

Of course, if you mix red with white you get pink. Happy Valentine's everyone!

[Greg Verdino]

Red+yellow=mustard and ketchup. I'm sorry, that's just how it is. :-) But red+yellow also reminds me of some research I saw many moons ago what purported that "yellow based reds" (like the red you use in your post) is more "attractive" to women, whereas "blue based" reds (think deeper reds or maroons) are more attractive to men. So the irony (according to this research) is that women wear yellow-based red lipstick to attract men, not realizing that the men they are looking to attract are more attracted to entirely different shades of red. Weird. Not sure why I even remember this. Or why I'm posting it here. But happy V-day all... :-)