"How wonderful yellow is. It stands for the sun." - Vincent Van Gogh
Yellow street signs with black letters, yellow cabs, yellow Cheerios boxes that seem to stick out on supermarket shelves. You can't miss them. Yellow quickly registers with the brain, stimulating the nervous system and the mind. Yellow is a color one can simply not ignore. According to color theorist Faber Birren, yellow promotes quick and clear thinking. He should know - he is responsible for the creation of the Yellow Pages in the 1950s to relieve the on the job monotony of telephone operators. Research from Pantone later would confirm Birren's theory, proving that a yellow background with black type is the most legible and the most conducive to memory retention.
However a little goes a long way - too much exposure to yellow can overstimulate and cause anxiety - so take it easy with that paint brush around the house.
A little more about the color Yellow:
- Yellow is considered to be the happiest color in the spectrum associated with warmth, joy and optimism. There's a good reason why the smiley face icon is yellow.
- Yellow adds vitality to other colors - making hot hues appear even more brilliant and bringing cool colors to life
- Yellow's complimentary color in the garden is purple
- In Japan, the color Yellow conveys grace and nobility, an association that goes back to ancient warriors who wore yellow chrysanthemums into battle as a pledge of courage
Excerpts taken from The Complete Color Harmony, by Tina Sutton and Bride M Whelan, Rockport Publishers
No comments:
Post a Comment