The Untapped Power of Color and Culture

There is much more to col­or than a pret­ty palette or a fash­ion state­ment. It gives rise to feel­ings, forges con­nec­tions to one’s her­itage, brings peo­ple togeth­er, and is an effec­tive form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. We can cre­ate deep­er rela­tion­ships when we become more aware of the col­or choic­es we make in our brand­ing and inten­tion­al­ly use col­or psy­chol­o­gy as a pow­er­ful form of lan­guage, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to cross-cul­tur­al communication.

Our rela­tion­ship with col­or has shift­ed over time. It was once close­ly con­nect­ed to our cul­ture and her­itage and now is a form of self-expres­sion and fash­ion. We fre­quent­ly put off col­or selec­tions until the end and nev­er con­sid­er how our cho­sen col­ors might influ­ence peo­ple in dif­fer­ent cul­tures. Or we let arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pick the colors. 

There is noth­ing wrong with pulling inspi­ra­tion from our envi­ron­ments — we love when cre­ativ­i­ty can bloom. But in terms of col­or as a form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, we need to be strate­gic. It is time for us to recon­nect with col­or and deep­en our con­nec­tion with it because it has the pow­er to bring com­mu­ni­ties togeth­er and cel­e­brate our rich tra­di­tions and heritage. 

Our con­nec­tion to col­or and cul­ture runs deep in many dif­fer­ent ways and envi­ron­ments. We can see this across:

• Tra­di­tions and holidays
• Reli­gion and rituals
• Arts and folklore
• Tex­tiles and patterns
• Sym­bols
• Jew­el­ry
• Archi­tec­ture
• Food

How­ev­er, many of us don’t real­ize that there are oth­er vital influ­ences relat­ed to col­or and cul­ture and that they are relat­ed to trau­mas and painful experiences:

• Gen­er­a­tional
• His­tor­i­cal
• Gen­der 
• Per­son­al 

While we may not con­trol or under­stand an indi­vid­u­al’s trau­mas relat­ed to spe­cif­ic hues, we must be aware of the his­tor­i­cal and gen­er­a­tional trau­mas some col­ors hold. For instance, in Venezuela, for­mer pres­i­dent Hugo Chavez used red for his cam­paign. He called on his fol­low­ers to flood the streets with red berets or hats to chant his name, as the peo­ple who did­n’t sup­port his tyran­ny would do peace­ful protests. He used red from the flag col­or and told peo­ple it rep­re­sent­ed his pas­sion for his coun­try, but his actions cre­at­ed anger, rage, and blood­shed con­nect­ed to that hue. Many Venezue­lans still hold uneasy feel­ings about see­ing red berets.

We can also take that same red hue and see its sym­bol­ic con­nec­tion to the Chi­nese New Year, as it brings good fortune.

And Indi­an brides wear their tra­di­tion­al wed­ding attire (called lehen­ga), which is typ­i­cal­ly red.

This knowl­edge can help you engage your com­mu­ni­ties and pre­vent us from becom­ing more divid­ed. Your brand’s visu­al iden­ti­ty, writ­ten con­tent, and even, in some cas­es, body lan­guage can all influ­ence col­or and cul­ture in var­i­ous ways.

As you work with col­or in your brand­ing, you want to think beyond a pret­ty palette and always con­sid­er the hue’s impact. Don’t rush your col­or selec­tion process! 

To get a deep­er look at the impact of Col­or and Cul­tur­al Con­nec­tions, check out Nicte’s course on LinkedIn Learning.

Tap­ping into the pow­er of col­or and cul­ture for your brand might not hap­pen overnight. How­ev­er, there are ways to be more effi­cient and inten­tion­al in using col­ors in your communication.

Here are three areas to focus on: 

PLAN BEFORE DESIGNING

Define what your com­mu­ni­ca­tion goal is as you can con­nect col­or to help you dri­ve emo­tions. Keep in mind that work­ing with a glob­al audi­ence means you must do thor­ough research beyond a quick search on Google. 

Set a time­line in your research and devel­op­ment phase to allow you enough time to assess your col­or impact on a glob­al scale. Trends might also influ­ence the mean­ing of col­or over time, so stay­ing in the know of trends can be beneficial. 

CHECK YOUR SOURCES

It’s incred­i­ble how the inter­net has pro­vid­ed us with acces­si­ble infor­ma­tion in sec­onds. But that does­n’t mean that the sources are always trust­wor­thy. At the same time, it’s hard to check the valid­i­ty of the con­tent. So to nav­i­gate this, try using trust­ed and well-known sources. Ide­al­ly, you’ll want to have a trust­ed net­work of experts who you can con­sult for spe­cif­ic questions.

ALWAYS CHECK FOR BIAS

All forms of visu­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion could hold a bias or a com­plete mis­un­der­stand­ing about a cul­ture-relat­ed col­or. We have to avoid using col­or choic­es based on mar­ket­ing sales tactics. 

In the old-age gen­dered mar­ket­ing approach, using pink to mar­ket to women has been a go-to for many brands. We can’t assume that every woman loves pink! We also can’t assume that using flag col­ors will be sym­bol­ic of cul­ture or her­itage. To ensure your con­tent is on-point, you can build part­ner­ships with local folk­lore and cul­tur­al groups who are experts in that community.

We can cre­ate deep­er rela­tion­ships when we become more aware of the col­or choic­es we make in our brand­ing and inten­tion­al­ly use col­or psy­chol­o­gy as a pow­er­ful form of lan­guage. Col­or is one way that we can bridge cul­tur­al divides and build under­stand­ing. When used thought­ful­ly, col­or can be an incred­i­bly effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool. I’ve just scratched the sur­face on this fas­ci­nat­ing top­ic here.

To learn more, check out my LinkedIn Learn­ing Course on Col­or and Cul­tur­al con­nec­tions. In it, we explore how col­ors are per­ceived dif­fer­ent­ly in dif­fer­ent cul­tures and how to use that knowl­edge to cre­ate designs that res­onate with peo­ple all over the world. 

Do you have any mem­o­rable expe­ri­ences with col­or for cross-cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion? Leave us a com­ment below!