By Barbara Call Bourassa
Planning to paint your house, buy a car, or choose a new seasonal wardrobe? Test your knowledge of color with this quick and easy quiz.
1. True or false: Color has power.
The answer is true. Color has a great deal of power. It can affect our mood or what we eat. It can generate conversation, anxiety or hunger. It's the easiest way to update a product line, a room, or your outlook. The movie industry, for example, uses color all the time to evoke emotion. Studies have also shown that recoloring a manufacturing production facility can help to increase productivity by 15 to 25 percent.
2. True or false: Industries arbitrarily use colors and don’t put much thought into the effect these decisions will have.
The answer is false.Traditionally, yellow is not used in healthcare because it's the color of jaundice or body fluids. Orange and red, meanwhile, are used to stimulate the appetite, so they're used in a lot in restaurants.
3. True or false: Color has the ability to communicate meaning.
The answer is true.Color is used in our everyday vocabulary all the time. Think of the phrases, 'green with envy' or 'feeling blue.' It's part of our language, part of our culture. When we use those words, we have a mental picture of those colors, so we communicate verbally as well as physically.
4. True or false: The same colors speak to everyone in the same way.
The answer is false. One person may interpret a color as calming, while another may view it as just plain boring. That’s why clothing, accessories, cosmetics, and paints come in such a variety of colors. To discover the colors that speak to you, look at home and fashion magazines, rip out pages that look appealing, and put them in a folder. After you've gathered a number of pages, lay out the tear sheets and look at what's common among them. You'll see what styles, colors, or textures you're drawn to.
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