Green is my favourite colour

Over at Quofda (Question of the day) the question is Why is your favorite color your favorite color?. As a designer it’s sort of hard to nail a favourite colour to a certain extent as I’m fairly colour obsessed and tend to use a wide range in work. There is one colour though I tend to lean more towards than others and that is green.

Green meaning

As is fairly known I’m a little on the obsessed side to do with the meaning behind colours, so lets have a look at what green means:

Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility. Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety. Dark green is also commonly associated with money.

Green has great healing power. It is the most restful color for the human eye; it can improve vision. Green suggests stability and endurance. Sometimes green denotes lack of experience; for example, a ‘greenhorn’ is a novice. In heraldry, green indicates growth and hope. Green, as opposed to red, means safety; it is the color of free passage in road traffic.

Use green to indicate safety when advertising drugs and medical products. Green is directly related to nature, so you can use it to promote ‘green’ products. Dull, darker green is commonly associated with money, the financial world, banking, and Wall Street.

Dark green is associated with ambition, greed, and jealousy.
Yellow-green can indicate sickness, cowardice, discord, and jealousy.
Aqua is associated with emotional healing and protection.
Olive green is the traditional color of peace.

- Color wheel pro.com

My own personal evocations from the colour green hark back to nature. I see it as a calming colour – to a certain extent depending on tone. I also tend to prefer the yellow / brown tones of green rather than a bottle or forest green. I don’t tend to like a green colour with a lot of blue such as aqua either.

Green to me is a good colour to work with a muted palette but also great as an accent colour for instance with lime. It is also a warming colour in certain tones so makes a design welcoming but also easy to read. It works in dark and light tones – part of the appeal is it’s flexibility.

The problem with a favourite colour

To a certain extent having a favourite colour as a designer can be limiting and also narrow your vision. You have to be open to seeing the potential in any colour. Often you aren’t in control of the entire design brief your client gives – what if they want a red and blue site and you don’t like those colours? I tend to see the value in any colour as if you use tones even the most troublesome colour on the web can be tamed.

Preferred tones

I tend to prefer muted tones with a strong colour as a highlight if anything. Most of my designs reflect this even if using a range of colours. However, just like with colours you have to be open to extending beyond your personal safety zones and explore tones and colours you may not like. Sometimes the most successful designs come from extending beyond your boundaries.