Designing a Character: Color/Hue

Of all the elements of design, color has the greatest psychological impact.  It is also the most subjective.  How many times in your life has the answer to the question, “What’s your favorite color?” changed?

Generally speaking warm/high value hues, yellow, orange, and red, energize us, while cool/lower value hues, blue, green, purple calm us.  There are commonly accepted perceptions to specific hues.

Let’s take a quick peek at some associations with primary colors:

Red: violence, lust, hatred, blood, love, passion

Yellow: youth, health, vitality, action, happiness

Blue: truth, loyalty, sincerity, peace, calm

Go to the secondary hues and you’ve added a layer of complexity, after all it takes blue and yellow to make green.  Go down to the tertiary hues and we have a full palette of possibilities as we mix a primary and a secondary.  Yellow-greens will not have the same emotional impact as a nice kelly or forest green.  Suddenly a bright vibrant yellow becomes sickly when infested with touches of green.

What qualities of color do your characters project?  What hue associations tie in to what drives them through the story?  Are they a primary color, pure in nature or something as complex as a blackened magenta?  Does your character blend cohesively with their setting and other characters, or are they a living mismatched outfit worn out in public, like Professor Trelawney in Harry Potter?  Try mixing some bold, unexpected color combinations to define your character.

One last thought.  When naming colors in your writing, remember the paint chips at the hardware store.  It’s a great place to research interesting color names.  Blues run the gamut from sapphire to midnight, reds dance from crimson to cherry, and even browns span root beer to toast.     

I give you permission to buy the BIG box of crayons and explore.