A background in the fundamentals of color theory and how it is used in presentations is useful for creating effective designs. Color will be addressed here as an element of graphics design, but it should be noted that the principles of color usage apply to all aspects of visual media, including video and animation.
Color has three basic uses in presntations: identifying, contrasting, and highlighting. You might, for example, identify all fourth-quarter sales by making those figures blue; contrast profits and losses with black and red; or highlight a key point with bright orange bullet. Color can be used in backgrounds, text, lines, and shapes. It can be used in patterns, textures, and gradients. Of course, color also can be used in full-color, photorealistic images or video.
| FOR ADULTS | FOR CHILDREN |
| Blue | Yellow |
| Red | White |
| Green | Pink |
| White | Red |
| Pink | Orange |
| Purple | Blue |
| Orange | Green |
| Yellow | Purple |
| Source: Symbol Sourcebook, Henry Dreyfuss, McGraw-Hill, 1972, NY, NY | |
| COLOR | POSITIVE | NEGATIVE | ||
| Red | warmth, life, joy, happiness, love, passion, blood, liberty, revolution, patroitism |
wounds, pain, spilled blood, burning, death, war, anarchy, Satan, danger |
||
| Orange | warmth, fire and flames, marraige, |
malevolence, Satan | ||
| Yellow | sun, light, illumination, intuition, intellect, supremem wisdom, highest values |
trechery, cowardice, debauchery, malevolence, impure love, illness |
||
| Green | nature, fertility, sympathy, prosperity, hope, life, imortality, youth | death, lividness, envy, jelously, disgrace, moral degradation madness | ||
| Blue | sky, day, calm waters,thinking, religious, feeling, devotion, innocence, truth, justice | night, stormy seas, doubt, discouragement, cold, sadness | ||
| Purple | power, spirituality, royalty, love of truth, loyalty, emire, patience, humility, nostalgia | sublimation, martyrdom, mourning, regret, penitence, resignation, humility | ||
| Brown | earth, soil, fertility, nature | poverty, barrenness | ||
| Gold | sun, majesty, riches, honesty, wisdom, honor, first place, (bronze, third place) | idolatry, greed, commercialism | ||
| Silver | purity, chastity, test of truth, moon, second place or platinim (premium before gold) | (none listed) | ||
| White | day, innocence, purity, perfection, rectitude, wisdom, truth | spectral, ghostly, cold, blank, void, winter | ||
| Gray | maturity, discretion, humility, pentitence, renunciation, retrospection | neutrality, egoism, depression, inertia, indifference, grief, old age, penitence | ||
| Black | mighty, dignified, sophisticated, regal, fertility, determination, night, solemnity | morbidity, m=nothingness, despair, night, evil, sin, death, sickness, negation | ||
| Source: Symbol Sourcebook, Henry Dreyfuss, McGraw-Hill, 1972, NY, NY | ||||
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