52. The Meanings of Colors Vary By Group and Culture

Many years ago I worked with a client who had created a color map of the different business regions for their company, showing the total revenue for the quarter for each region. Yellow was for the eastern part of the United States, green for the central states, and red for the western states. The VP of Sales got to the podium and started his slide show to the financial and accounting staff of the company. Up came the colored map, and a gasp could be heard in the auditorium, followed by the buzz of urgent conversation. The VP tried to continue his talk, but he had lost everyone’s attention. They were all talking among themselves.

Finally someone blurted out, “What the heck is going on in the West?”

“What do you mean?” the VP asked. “Nothing is going on. They had a great quarter.”

To an accountant or financial person, red is a bad thing. It means that they are losing money. The presenter had to explain that he had just randomly picked red.

Colors have associations and meanings; for example, red means “in the red” or financial trouble, or it could mean danger or stop. Green means money or “go.” Pick colors carefully, since they have these meanings. And different colors might mean different things to subgroups.

If you are designing for people in different parts of the world, you have to also consider the color meanings in other cultures. A few colors have similar meanings everywhere (gold, for example, stands for success and high quality in most cultures), but most colors have different meanings in different cultures. For example, in the United States white signifies purity and is used at weddings, but in other cultures white is the color used for death and funerals. Happiness is associated with white, green, yellow, or red, depending on the part of the world you are in.