Mastering Color Theory: Impact on Design and Audience Engagement

let's finally settle the score on color theory  you've probably been told things like up to 90   of consumers evaluate a brand or design and  based on color alone and according to studies   yeah that's pretty true but there are various  different problems that designers need to be  

aware of when it comes to color theory and  you won't want to miss out on this knowledge   pertaining to color in 1974 KW Jacobs demonstrated  red to be more stimulating than green and green   more stimulating than blue according to this  study a person left in a red room is constantly  

stimulated with heightened awareness and elevated  heart rate and in 1981 Richard cooler showed in   studies that color had a great effect on EEG  readings and heart rates as well as emotional   perceptions of objects so color does have a direct  physical response on our bodies and can actually  

play on our emotions but here's the first very  important thing you want to keep in mind as a   designer it isn't necessarily the color that's  important brightness and low saturation creates a   soft feeling whereas dimness and high saturation  creates a hard or strong feeling also weaker  

contrast and weaker saturation conveys calmness  as opposed to a stronger contrast and saturation   which convey activity it's why pastel colors are  often given to baby things or are considered by   some to be calming because they lack saturation  and as you can see things do start to become a  

bit tricky when it comes to the use of color and  color theory but only if you don't properly absorb   the content in today's video and potentially you  do take some notes let's just say hypothetically   we're making a design for an insurance company  now it could be a logo a brochure whatever it  

is using this knowledge you might then choose  one low saturation and two weak contrast these   decisions will convey a sense of calmness which  is great for conveying to the target audience   that they're in safe hands and that yes they  will purchase 100 Years of your finest Insurance  

knowing the message or feeling you want to send  out with Your Design allows you to then select   things like saturation contrast and brightness but  let's go deeper with color theory even yet still   in common color theory you've probably heard  this a thousand different times the color red  

relates to danger but also to passion and last to  blah blah blah yes to some extent this is true of   course but get this we already know that from  the study mentioned earlier that red creates a   heightened sense of stimulation being stimulated  like that does a few things some of those things  

include changes in breathing patterns pulse blood  pressure and muscle tension okay cool but where   does that even fit into graphic design so when  people are at this level of stimuli they're more   likely to recall something and to form memory  Loops it's like mini trauma and our brains are  

designed to latch onto Trauma from a survival  point of view many Brands and many designs use   red or similar colors to grab attention and to  create Hard Solid memories to the audience think   of Brands like CNN or Target as example so for  the UI and ux designers out there HubSpot ran  

a study on the effect of switching website call  to action buttons from green to red and they got   some very very conclusive results the red button  outperformed the green button by 21 in terms of   Click through rate which is pretty major in the  business World color theory can be fiddly and it  

can be precise at times for example combining a  vibrant red and green together can end up being   unpleasant to the eye but if you lighten the  red to a soft pink and then make the green less   saturated and slightly darker it then becomes  a decent color palette one that is immediately  

memorable and Visually appealing to use there is  a spanner I could throw into the works right here   culture culture plays a vital role in how people  feel towards color red typically denotes love   in the US in Japan however red is associated with  wrath and anger there are many different examples  

of how different cultures use and feel towards  color but here's yet another spanner to throw into   the works age and gender Studies have shown that  women tend to prefer softer more pastel colors   whereas men prefer Bolder colors it's important to  note that this is just an average and won't apply  

to everyone in a group but when making designs  and decisions on those designs we aim to kind of   appeal to the majority of a target audience and  not just the minority this should tell you that   you absolutely must know your target audience  in terms of the age gender location what they  

like and dislike and what you want them to feel  with your design in doing so you can then pick   colors that do actually work but not just colors  the saturation the brightness the contrast and   all of that good stuff so let's quickly make one  design but in two very different ways by using  

what we've talked about in today's video in regard  to color theory and yes I am actually a bit sick   at the moment and I probably am going to be okay  by the time you watch this video but for the first   design this is something for a Chic an exclusive  even upmarket fashion magazine now for this kind  

of design I might want to consider that a Chic and  upmarket design does not want to be loud and over   the top and that's because it's trying to appeal  to a more refined and more sophisticated kind of   person so it does need to be more classy more  refined and more sophisticated in terms of the  

color with that in mind a muted color palette  with low saturation would be a very good idea   so this base image has had its saturation lowered  and it's mainly seen in grayscale but if I add in   the magazine title I've also then gone ahead and  used a gray kind of color and it's not saturated  

this keeps in line with my theory and we will soon  see a totally different version of this design but   finally we're going to add in minor text and this  does need some saturation and contrast just to   stand out and be legible but yet this design as  a whole is refined it's sophisticated and it's  

simple but what if we're making the same kind of  design but aimed towards readers or viewers who   might be teenagers or just not into these Chic and  expensive side of fashion well we can then decide   to slap on some saturated bold colors to create  a kind of a loud statement and then use a title  

that is also very bold over impacting we can then  continue the rest of the typography in a similar   way and as you can see guys the same essential  design can look very different and appeal to   two very different audiences simply by considering  color and yes okay you've got me I was sneaky and  

did use a different typography too but hey I'm a  designer and I just can't really help myself but   yeah that's how you can consider saturation Hues  brightness all that good stuff when it comes to   color theory and the audience and in the video  seen on screen now I actually go into depth on  

how color theory plays into logo designing so if  you want to learn something really interesting   helpful about that just click the video on screen  and until next time guys design your future today