Perception: it’s all in the eye. We’ve whimbrelled on about all sorts in our psychology of design series. From colour to simplicity, but did you find them engaging? Interesting? Infuriating? Maybe. It’s all about perception. We’ve covered colour and simplicity so far in our Psychology of Design series, and now it’s time to turn our attention to perception! Here’s a quick question, what colour is the trainer below?
Some say pink and white, some say grey and blue. The point is that perception is key to how things are received. In the spirit of this, we thought we’d collate five psychological tips and tricks to help you with your graphic design content. So read on for some top graphic design tips!
(oh the shoe was pink and white by the way)
Brightness
The means in which we perceive lightness and darkness, as well as the information pertain to a colour via “rods” and “cones.” Rods help us with scotopic vision (seeing in low light) and cones helping us with sensing colour information.
Also known as value, brightness is the combination of the hue of colours alongside with the value of the colour (whether that’s HEX or RGB) It exists in reference to both the lightness of the colour you’re working with, and the ability of that colour effectively replicate the look and style of light, refraction, reflection or flare. This luminance is something the human eye picks up on very effectively – so make sure you’re bearing it in mind when designing your content.
Gradient
A popular trend at the moment (and for good reason!), gradients can be effectively utilised in order to add a level of depth to your graphic design work. They can make an otherwise “flat” looking image look more engaging, add texture or add an element of colour to your project that was otherwise missing! Commonly, designers will utilise complementary colours within their gradients creating a colour contrast that is appealing to the eye. Do that. Also, the majority of readers will look at your content from top-left to bottom-right, so it’s useful to put the lightest part of your gradient top-left, to act as a subtle guide to where they should be reading from first.
Contrast
Contrast is a bigg’un. There are a lot of ways you can utilise this bad boy to knock your designs out of the park. We’re just going to jump right in. Size matters sure, varying and contrasting the sizes of different things in your design will make your work a lot more visually stimulating, but we’re going to focus on colour here. Use colours that when contrasted – complement each other! (Like a couple who’ve been together for a while and build each other up every single day. Wouldn’t that be nice? Brenda if you’re reading this, get in touch.) Don’t use two incredibly bright colours (like #CFEEFA and #B9FFB0 for God’s sake). Use varying degrees of saturation to draw the eye to certain elements over others. Use high contrast colours, if you’re trying to make a point. Use after-sun lotion if you’ve been in the sun.
Hue
Hue is less full on. Hue relates to the colour of a specific part of your design and what that represents to an audience. So we’re going to give you a lil run down of what colours mean in the eyes of the observer:
Red
Attention! Achtung! Oi mate! The colour red alerts us and captures our attention. And with that, our brain thinks of excitement, danger, action and energy. Red can also encourage feelings of hunger (possibly due to red being associated with heat, and heat with food), hence why it’s used in the branding of almost every fast food chain.
The element of danger is something that can cause a sense of worry or dread, so if your brand colours aren’t necessarily red, perhaps it is worth considering its use for something such as a sales button, or a discount button. The means in which you utilise the schema of red is up to you…
Pink
The primary schema surrounding pink is femininity, womenkind, playfulness and love. Girls toys, women’s clothes, lingerie. It can also be associated with immaturity and childishness. This is why women’s clobber is largely marketed with pink labels, why cleaning products tend to be pink and why they use it in prisons too: pink, at least temporarily, encourages people to calm down and have pacifying effects.
Yellow
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof! Yellow makes people feel joyful, happy, optimistic and gets ‘em thinking of summer. Quite simply, it helps people associate your brand with something positive. This is why brands like will use yellow, to create an image of positivity and happiness. You can imagine the scene: you’re in the passenger seat of a Lamborghini, Snapchatting the summer with a bottle of Lipton Iced tea in your hands, on your way to McDonald’s. What more could you want?
Blue
Calm down, be stable, live in harmony. This is the power of blue. It makes you think “everything will be aaaaalright.” This is one of the reasons that social media companies lean towards blue, it encourages trust and it encourages you to chill out, dude. On another point, blue can encourage feelings of coldness and chilliness. Hence why a great deal of water companies will incorporate blue. Have a nice, cold refreshing bottle of water, dude. Calm down.
White
The schema surrounding white is another obvious one. Cleanliness, purity and transparency. Black on white proves the most readable (hence they do it with them books we all read) and conveys efficiency and intelligence too. That’s why the BBC uses it and the WWF and Pioneer Creative Marketing use it. These companies are all brilliant and the designers behind them are all brilliant too.
Green
Money doesn’t grow on trees. But they’re both green. And that’s kind of relevant. Green is associated with money, nature, health and fertility. Products that are or want to appear as healthy and natural will utilise green to push that idea. Hence Whole Foods, Tropicana, John Deere use it. And Subway does too. And Starbucks. And Sprite. If you wish to convey ethical behaviour and if you want to pretend you’re ethical, go green!
So there it is friends, we’ve opened your brain tanks and poured in some premium octane knowledge. You’re ready now to drive this Aston Martin straight into a fox. Quite the rush-a-doodle-doo. Go free and be perceived, be perceived, not as the same human you were at the start of this blog – but as a similar human who knows slightly more about perception in graphic design than they did 5 minutes ago. You legend.
Pioneer Creative Marketing 