Color theory green color — for logo, website, call to action, and products
If you love a little walk in nature then you know the power of green color. There are many kinds of green to arouse various emotions. But, the dominant emotion is calmness and prosperity. In the world of design and marketing, we have to harness the power of colors to draw eyeballs. Let us understand the color theory — green color concepts.
Green is a mix of blue and yellow.
You mix and blue to make green. Blue is a warm color while yellow is a cool color. Green is a transition color. Read about warm cool, and neutral colors tips in color theory here.
Since a warm and a cool color mixes to form green, it is a transition color. Green can have strong warm or cool undertones. If your green has too much yellow then it is warm green. If it has too much blue then it is cool green. But, we call green a cool color in the color wheel.
You could also add white, black, and grey into the green to dull down the bright green color. You find all these colors in nature. Different greens evoke various different emotions. Yellow and blue evoke opposite emotions. Green mixes different ratios of yellow and blue to evoke an amazing array of emotions.
You can see in the above color palette that warm green attracts the greatest emotion. It is because it has a lot of yellow in it. Yellow grabs attention.
Yellow also stands for youthfulness. Warm green represents the color of young spring leaves.
Cool relaxes us. It represents sophistication. Take a look at the coolest green above.
It represents the maturity of the older leaves.
You can express the essence of almost any brand with green.
Emotion #1. Growth
Plants are green. The green color reminds you of abundant growth. But this growth is not uncontrolled. It is calm, happy, and secure. Doctors use green clinics to let their patients relax.
The green color has a shorter wavelength. Your eyes do not have to adjust to this color, it feels calm to the viewer. People like to gaze at your logo or call to action, etc for a long time.
Emotion #2. Eco-friendly initiatives
‘Go green’ and other such phrases remind us of closeness to nature. If you run an organic or eco-friendly, or herbal products brand then green is your color. Diet food, agricultural products, and health-related products industries can also use green to communicate their essence. Make it dominant in your color palette.
Then you could use complementary, analogous, triadic, tetradic, or monochromatic color combinations with the dominant green.
In essence, green represents your brand is closer to nature and attracts customers.
Emotion #3. Power, sophistication, and logic
Cooler greens can represent power and sophistication. Finance, education, and military sectors could use this color.
The luxury products industry can rely on green and pink colors.
Emotion #4. Happiness and holidays
The Christmas tree has a green background and red decorations. Green and red together remind us of holidays. Cool green and red are complementary colors (See below). You can use them together to create contrast as well.
Emotion #5. Neon green reminds of entertainment
Neon green reminds us of movies, bars, and entertainment. But, too much neon green can irritate the eyes. So, mute down the green or use green with a blue bias (cool green).
Emotion #6. Illusion of depth
Cool green background and a pink or red foreground create an illusion of depth. It is because cool colors appear to recede into the background. The warmer colors like pink and red appear to come closer to the viewer.
Emotion #7. Optimism, creativity, and motivation
Green represents the fertility of the earth. It arouses optimism. It motivates people. If your CTAs are green then conversions are more likely. It motivates people to engage and do business with you.
Emotion #8. Type of green and its meaning
Leading green logos
Many popular brands use green. You will identify many of them which I present here.
Brand #1. Starbucks
Starbucks keeps a green logo to represent growth. Even the interiors of the Starbucks restaurants are green to induce calmness in customers.
Brand #2. GoDaddy
The green logo represents freshness. And, green means ‘go’ like in ‘go’ of GoDaddy.
Brand #3. British Petroleum
The sunflower represents solar energy. And, the green logo represents the company’s eco-friendly practices.
Brand #4. John Deere
The green reminds me of fresh grass and the yellow of corn.
Complementary colors of the greens create contrast
Use complementary colors to stand out. Take help of the color wheel. Here are some tips on which colors to use with which green.
For example, if there are exit signs in green color then it enhances safety. If the room catches fire and the room is full of smoke, green stands out in the red background.
Green also represents some negative emotions
Green also represents lethargy, greed, and materialism. So, you may use green as the dominant color then use some other colors.
Some cultures consider green to be lucky while some others consider it unlucky. So, understand the cultural backgrounds of your target customers, where your company operates, etc. before choosing the green color.
Before choosing your color palette, make sure your colors do not clash with each other. Or, even the best designs can fail. So, be thorough with color theory concepts.
But, color theory is a vast topic. If you want all my colour theory blogs then click here.
