Colors carry significant symbolic meanings, often influencing emotions and perceptions, with Red signifying passion/danger, Blue representing calm/trust, Green relating to nature/growth, Yellow evoking happiness/optimism, Purple suggesting royalty/luxury, Black conveying power/mystery, White symbolizing purity/peace, and Orange indicating creativity/enthusiasm, though meanings vary across cultures.
Here are some common meanings of different colors in many Western cultures:
As mentioned earlier, the four main personality colors are red, blue, green and yellow. Yet only 5% of people can be defined by just one color. We usually match e.g. the characteristics of commanding red and analytical blue or empathetic green and inspiring yellow.
The 9 Rasas (Emotions) of Navrasa
The 3-color rule in fashion is a guideline to create balanced, cohesive outfits by limiting yourself to a maximum of three colors, typically a dominant color, a secondary color, and a small accent color, with neutrals like black or white often not counting towards the total, making it easier to look put-together and avoid clashing combinations. This rule helps achieve visual harmony, whether you're wearing bold hues or mostly neutrals, by establishing a clear color palette for your look, notes this Instagram reel and this YouTube video.
The 3-3-3 clothing rule is a simple styling method for creating many outfits from few items: choose 3 tops, 3 bottoms, and 3 shoes, which allows for 27 potential combinations (3x3x3) and reduces decision fatigue, often used for travel or building a minimalist capsule wardrobe. It's a versatile concept, sometimes expanded to include 3 layers (like jackets or cardigans) for even more looks, making dressing easier by focusing on mix-and-match versatility with core pieces.
Great 3-color combinations often follow color theory (like triadic palettes - e.g., Red, Yellow, Blue) or create specific moods, such as Teal, Magenta, Gold for vibrancy, Sage, Pine, Cream for calm nature, or Red, Black, White for bold contrast. The key is balance: use one dominant color and the others as accents for harmony.
The 7 colours of rainbow are always observed in the same order due to how light bends and spreads. These are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. They form the famous band known as the visible spectrum. To remember the 7 colours of the rainbow in order, use the acronym VIBGYOR or the phrase ROY G. BIV.
The four primary psychological colors—red, blue, yellow, and green—affect emotions and behavior. Red increases energy, blue promotes calmness, yellow boosts positivity, and green represents balance. Understanding color psychology can be beneficial in therapy.
In color psychology, red provokes the strongest emotions of any color. While cool colors like green and blue are generally considered peaceful and calming, the color red is considered the warmest and most contradictory of the colors.
Red individuals are dominant, direct, assertive, competitive and results-driven. If your personality colour's red, consider looking for leadership roles in business, sales and management.
The top 3 rarest personality types are consistently identified as INFJ (The Advocate), ENTJ (The Commander), and INTJ (The Architect), with INFJ usually being the absolute rarest (around 1.5%), followed by ENTJ (around 1.8%), and INTJ (around 2-3%) of the general population, according to Psych Central, Redeemed Mental Health, and Reddit.
Warm colors like red, orange, and yellow are often associated with energy, excitement, and aggression. On the other hand, cool colors such as blue, green, and purple tend to create a sense of calmness, tranquility, and relaxation.
Swiss psychologist Carl Jung built on the work of Hippocrates and defined the four temperaments in terms of colors: Cool Blue, Earth Green, Sunshine Yellow and Fiery Red. Everyone has all of the color energies in their personality, to differing degrees.
Purple, often termed the rarest color in nature, has historically been associated with royalty and regality, emblemizing its significance and scarcity. However, the reason for purple's rarity holds a much deeper scientific intrigue and gives us a window into the ecological complexity of color.
Orange: Friendly
Orange is the color of friendliness. It symbolizes cheerfulness and confidence.
Yellow is the “happiest” colour in the whole spectrum, it vibrates optimism and energy and attracts attention. This is why yellow is often used to give accent and highlight certain details and parts of rooms. This warm colour is symbolically associated with the sun and brings luck, self-confidence and even wisdom.
Golden Ratio — 6:3:1 Rule
We have to choose a dominant color and use it in 60% of the space, a secondary color in 30% and a final color in the remaining 10%.
Blue: The Color of Sadness — Google Arts & Culture.
The rainbow emoji is commonly used as a symbol of the LGBTQ+ community. Some people might add a 🌈 into their social media bio to self-identify as queer. Alternatively, you can use the rainbow emoji to express pride and support for the queer community or parts of queer culture.
VIBGYOR is how our teacher told us to remember the seven colours of Rainbow 🌈 Violet indigo blue green yellow orange red !
The 80/20 color rule in design suggests using one dominant color or palette for 80% of a space and a contrasting or accent color for the remaining 20% to create balance and harmony, making a room feel cohesive and intentional rather than chaotic. This principle applies to walls, furniture, and decor, allowing for a primary theme (like warm tones) and adding pops of complementary color (like cool tones) through smaller items like pillows, throws, or art, notes Yahoo Lifestyle Canada.
Our top 10 best color combinations
Use the rule of three with color
The first color is your main color, the second color is still prominent, but not as much as the main color. The third color is your accent color that you use sparingly or sprinkled here and there. If you're into numbers you could break this down into 60%, 30%, and 10%. Main color: 60%.