Color, Color Everywhere

Mark McCauley

"We live our entire lives in color," says interior designer Mark McCauley, ASID, author of Color Therapy at Home. "Every waking moment we’re surrounded by color and it has a huge impact."

While color associations can differ from culture to culture (white, the color of weddings in the U.S., is the color of mourning in Japan), there are associations that cross all cultures. "Regardless of who you are or when you've lived in the history of mankind, when you look at the sky it's blue," says McCauley. "Color perception has a spectacular emotional effect on all people," he says. "Think of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo's use of color is breathtaking, and the Japanese tourist will see it in the same way as the Norwegian tourist. The combination of those colors will produce the same emotional states."

Here, McCauley explores some of the common color associations.

Associated with life itself, the color GREEN represents newness (and naivete) and birth. As with the trees of the forest, green is photosynthesis, the act of turning light into life. Green also has a whimsical, fun nature and is seen as talkative and stimulating to conversation. Exploring green and violet>>

ORANGE is warming and uplifting, as in the "softer" energy found in the last rays of sunset. It relates to our entire lifecycle as the color of fall, symbolic of the end of life. Orange, as clay, has a primitive side as well, reminding us of our antediluvian forefathers.

We're surrounded by BLUE! We live on this big blue marble consisting of sea and sky. When associated with liquid, blue represents the soft lapping of waves or the running of a clear mountain stream. As the air we breathe, blue is fresh and vital, reminding us of the clarity of a sunlit day under azure skies.