Monday, November 14, 2005
PowerPoint Colors and Design
Color is a powerful PowerPoint design element. Your audience responds to colors in an emotional, subconscious way. What does your choice of PowerPoint backgrounds or font colors communicate to your audience?
Here are the emotions that the different colors evoke here in North America:
Red – This color evokes excitement, heat, and power. That is why red is often used as a call-out or accent in PowerPoint slides instead of a main PowerPoint background color: too much red, and you’ll feel hot and bothered – more “burned out” than “heated up.”
Orange – Orange indicates friendliness, action, and ability. Like yellow and red, orange is a hot color that is often used to emphasize a point. Like red, too much orange can be overwhelming to our senses.
Yellow – Yellow conveys cheerfulness, freshness, and originality. Seldom used as a background, yellow is very popular as a text color on a darker background.
Green – Green reminds us of nature, and using green is more personal and intimate than coldly professional. Green conjures up images of trees and nature: it’s a color that is often adopted by environmentalists and environmental causes or products.
Blue – Blue is the most popular PowerPoint background color. Feng shui experts tell us that blue conveys knowledge and intelligence. Darker blues are perceived as more formal than lighter blues.
Purple – Purple is prevalent among the new age, spiritual crowd. It is frequently associated with spirituality, luxury, and prosperity.
Brown - Implies age, integrity, and solidly wholesome qualities. Think of words written on aged paper, the earth, or whole grain bread: if it’s brown, it’s old-fashioned goodness.
Black – Black is the color of mystery, strength, depth. Like blue, black is a popular business background color for PowerPoint slides.
White –White is everywhere: we call the space where there are no objects “white space” even though the space might not be the actual color white. That’s because white represents purity, clarity, order, and cleanliness. It’s a popular background and accent color.
Important Note: different cultures respond to colors in different ways. Here in North America, black is the color of mourning: but in Asia, the color white is associated with death. ¶ 11/14/2005 05:59:00 PM
Color is a powerful PowerPoint design element. Your audience responds to colors in an emotional, subconscious way. What does your choice of PowerPoint backgrounds or font colors communicate to your audience?
Here are the emotions that the different colors evoke here in North America:
Red – This color evokes excitement, heat, and power. That is why red is often used as a call-out or accent in PowerPoint slides instead of a main PowerPoint background color: too much red, and you’ll feel hot and bothered – more “burned out” than “heated up.”
Orange – Orange indicates friendliness, action, and ability. Like yellow and red, orange is a hot color that is often used to emphasize a point. Like red, too much orange can be overwhelming to our senses.
Yellow – Yellow conveys cheerfulness, freshness, and originality. Seldom used as a background, yellow is very popular as a text color on a darker background.
Green – Green reminds us of nature, and using green is more personal and intimate than coldly professional. Green conjures up images of trees and nature: it’s a color that is often adopted by environmentalists and environmental causes or products.
Blue – Blue is the most popular PowerPoint background color. Feng shui experts tell us that blue conveys knowledge and intelligence. Darker blues are perceived as more formal than lighter blues.
Purple – Purple is prevalent among the new age, spiritual crowd. It is frequently associated with spirituality, luxury, and prosperity.
Brown - Implies age, integrity, and solidly wholesome qualities. Think of words written on aged paper, the earth, or whole grain bread: if it’s brown, it’s old-fashioned goodness.
Black – Black is the color of mystery, strength, depth. Like blue, black is a popular business background color for PowerPoint slides.
White –White is everywhere: we call the space where there are no objects “white space” even though the space might not be the actual color white. That’s because white represents purity, clarity, order, and cleanliness. It’s a popular background and accent color.
Important Note: different cultures respond to colors in different ways. Here in North America, black is the color of mourning: but in Asia, the color white is associated with death. ¶ 11/14/2005 05:59:00 PM
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I just heard that the color blue is a signal to the brain to go to sleep, this by a local Psychologist, so I am asking, while it may be the most popluar could that be because it helps them sleep in the presentation? Lots of things would win a popularity contest but that does not make them good for us to use.
Your thoughts please?
Thanks
Ned
Your thoughts please?
Thanks
Ned
Thanks for writing, Ned.
I agree that many things that win popularity contents don't win with me!
And blue can be very calming... we see a lot of blue in nature, so our eyes are accustomed to seeing stuff framed against a blue background. Blue sky, horizons, water...
...now contrast that with purple. It's a hue that's only a few degrees away from blue, but we just don't see a lot of purple in nature... or in PowerPoint! (I blogged about this earlier here http://www.maniactive.com/states/2006/02/passionate-purple-powerpoint.html)
So our eyes aren't accustomed to seeing objects framed against a wide horizon of purple. Purple is not so calming...it's more mysterious. Mystical even.
Blue puts us more at ease.
That said, choose your colors based on how you want your audience to feel.
Do you want your audience to feel calm and relaxed? Then maybe blue is your color.
Do you want them agitated? Wanna incite them into action? Then maybe you should use hot colors like red - red alert, orange alert, etc.
I can't help but notice that most news programs use blue backgrounds for their bullet point lists...
...they don't want to incite you to action. They want to make you veg on the couch and continue to watch! Contrast that with the ads: not a whole lot of blue going on in the commercials!
...but maybe today the news shows will use green!
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
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I agree that many things that win popularity contents don't win with me!
And blue can be very calming... we see a lot of blue in nature, so our eyes are accustomed to seeing stuff framed against a blue background. Blue sky, horizons, water...
...now contrast that with purple. It's a hue that's only a few degrees away from blue, but we just don't see a lot of purple in nature... or in PowerPoint! (I blogged about this earlier here http://www.maniactive.com/states/2006/02/passionate-purple-powerpoint.html)
So our eyes aren't accustomed to seeing objects framed against a wide horizon of purple. Purple is not so calming...it's more mysterious. Mystical even.
Blue puts us more at ease.
That said, choose your colors based on how you want your audience to feel.
Do you want your audience to feel calm and relaxed? Then maybe blue is your color.
Do you want them agitated? Wanna incite them into action? Then maybe you should use hot colors like red - red alert, orange alert, etc.
I can't help but notice that most news programs use blue backgrounds for their bullet point lists...
...they don't want to incite you to action. They want to make you veg on the couch and continue to watch! Contrast that with the ads: not a whole lot of blue going on in the commercials!
...but maybe today the news shows will use green!
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
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