I’m guessing I’m not alone in the struggle to stay positive, and I started wondering if there is any design/art out there that could help cheer us up.

Now that I focus mostly on designing visual brands for online businesses, color is still a huge part of what I do. Truthfully, it’s one of the best ways to distinguish your brand from everyone else’s out there. Color creates emotional reactions and can shape how people think about you and your biz.

According to research, color can increase brand recognition by 80%! And people make sub-conscious judgments about an environment or product within 90 seconds of first impression. Between 62% and 90% of that assessment is made based on color.

We CAN generalize to some degree about the symbolism and meaning attached to various colors, but we should do so with the knowledge that nothing is written in stone or guaranteed. Read on for an overview of various colors and what they are GENERALLY interpreted to mean and what reactions they are likely to evoke.