Colour in Business

Colour affects us, influences us and is therefore an important consideration in the clothes we wear, but what of its use in business? 

Far be it for me to pass on idle gossip, but I’ve heard it said that staff at Coca-Cola are not allowed to use blue in presentations (Pepsi colours?).  So how DO you choose the colours you might use to represent information?  Looking to your logo and brand palette is a good source but potentially limiting if it’s a single colour.
As the first colour the eye sees, Red is used to attract attention to sales in shops and in presentations would be an obvious way of highlighting information requiring the reader’s attention.   Traffic light colours of red, amber and green can be effective in flagging states of alert, Red for danger, Yellow/Amber as a ‘warning’ and Green for ‘go’!
Having worked consciously and proactively with colour for 20 years, I enjoyed reading a new perspective on the use of colour.   Perceptual Edge  works with ‘visual business intelligence’, ‘enlightening analysis and communication’, Stephen Few’s article introduces ‘rules’ to support you in making effective choices of colour, shade and intensity for business presentations. 

You can read the full article online.  In it Stephen provides some great illustrations of the fact that colours change according to the colours surrounding them.  The following squares are all the same colour, yet the varying background causes them to change their appearance.

 

This image, courtesy of Wikipedia, illustrates the same effect.  The chosen colours can therefore affect the visibility, legibility and readability, resulting in either helping or hindering the reader.  For example, colour filters are regularly used in schools to aid children learning to read.  Only this morning I witnessed a blue filter being successfully employed by a dyslexic child, who'd progressed more in the past few weeks than in the previous academic year.

 

Your progress can be helped or hindered by the way you present yourself.  Powerful dressing is about congruence with you, your product/service/organisation and your audience.  Just as dressing appropriately (and consistently) helps hold the audience's attention, so careful (and consistent) selection of colour in presentations will minimise the potential for distraction, helping to focus the reader’s attention.

Maureen Stone writes more specifically about ‘Choosing Colours’, explaining the principles of colour design in relation to contrast and analogy and providing evidence for using contrast rather than colour to aid legibility. 

Stephen refers to nature’s intelligent use of colour, particularly brights, to attract pollinators.  I love the fact that Hoverflies cleverly adopt the ‘danger, keep clear’ uniform of bees and wasps to protect themselves from predators.  What inspiration can you borrow?

Both authors point to the Color Brewer website, a resource enabling you to experiment (using a map illustration) with choosing effective colour palettes and also providing the facility to download the palettes for use.

Whether we see and perceive colours in the same way as our neighbour is almost irrelevant, having worked with both blind and colour blind clients through colour analysis I can attest to the power of colour working – just differently!

What experience do you have of working with colour?