While the red chart likely leads you to think “Wow, Berlin summers are quite hot,” the blue version may push you to think of summers as rainy and rather cold. Without any intention, the two variations of my visualization triggered different emotional reactions. Variation in daily temperatures in Berlin, in English and German with two different color palettes. To make it easily accessible for local people, I also created a version in German-and just for the sake of variety and to make them easily distinguishable at a glance, I created this version in a blue color scale. When designing my contribution to the #SWDchallenge of September 2019 on the topic “Visualizing Uncertainty”, I depicted the variation in monthly temperatures in my hometown of Berlin.įor me, it was straightforward to use a warm, reddish color palette and to display the temperature range in degrees of Celsius. Whether intentional or not, the colors we use in any visualization inevitably spark emotions in our viewers. In our effort to create meaningful visualizations from our data, we transmit our message not only through the particular chart type and title we choose, but also through our choice of colors for the data itself and for any additional design elements. Mark RothkoĪs data visualization practitioners we are both engineers and designers. I am interested in expressing the big emotions. If you are only moved by color relationships, you are missing the point. We thank Cédric for sharing this post with us, and we hope you enjoy it!

Before becoming a freelance data visualization specialist, Cédric was a trained ecologist, which required a unique combination of responsibilities: in addition to analysing and visualizing tons of animal data, he was also capturing foxes, raccoons, and hares in the wild! Now, he is combining his expertise in analysing and visualizing large data sets with his passion for design to create visualizations across all disciplines, purposes, and styles. Thanks again to Cole Knaflic and Mike Cisneros for inviting and motivating me as well as for your comments on the draft.Īs we continue our exploration of color in data visualization this month, we are happy to share this guest post from notable #SWDchallenge contributor and community member Cédric Scherer.

They’re often popular with brands promoting health, beauty or security.This blog post originally appeared as a guest post on the “Storytelling with Data” blog as part of the color series. Green, blue and purple are cool colors they can be seen as calming, soothing, nurturing, subdued or even sad (e.g., blues music, the “baby blues” or Picasso’s Blue Period). Red can even make you hungry, which is why it’s a favorite with fast food chains. Warm colors also rev you up! They can signal danger or make you take action, like the color of stop signs, caution tape or the agitated faces of disgruntled airline passengers. Yellow-y sunshine might lift your mood, while red roses might get you in the mood. Red, orange and yellow are all warm colors and are generally thought to evoke feelings of happiness, optimism, energy and passion. There’s a subtle but important difference between fiery red and earth red, right?īut with so many colors to choose from, where do you start? Narrowing them down to categories can help. The way we respond to color depends on its brightness, shade or tint, and whether it’s cool or warm-toned. So, let’s look at how different groups of colors make us feel, then see how individual colors can be used to evoke specific emotions. And the wrong colors could send the wrong message-like using white to convey freshness in a culture where it represents death.

Up to 90% of people base their first impressions of a product on color alone. Design by Active Theory✦ĭesigners and brand owners need to understand the basics of color theory, color symbolism and the psychology of color to communicate effectively to their audience. It often depends on our psychology, biological conditioning and cultural background. “It colors our language-we say we are ‘feeling blue,’ ‘seeing red,’ ‘green with envy’ or ‘in the pink.’”īut how we react to different colors isn’t always black and white (see what we did there?). “Color is closely associated with emotions,” London College of Fashion lecturer Maria Costantino told Harper’s Bazaar. There’s even a term, “ dopamine dressing,” to describe the mood-boosting benefits of wearing certain colors. Maybe you dyed your hair black as a teenager to evoke gloomy, existential angst and inner turmoil (or to anger your parents). Or painted a room pale blue to feel calm.

You might have worn red to intimidate your enemies ( it works for athletes). You probably instinctively know there’s a relationship between colors and emotions.

Colors and emotions