LookStat – Official Blog

When creating anything commercial, it’s important to think about who will be using your work and how they intend to use it. I came across a fascinating article on color psychology (targeted at designers) and wanted to share some excerpts from it since I think the concepts it covers are very relevant to photographers looking to produce images that buyers will find useful.

I highly recommend reading the article itself but also thought I’d share two sections that jumped out at me. First, they have a list of color associations that are common in ‘mainstream North American culture’ (their words.)

Red –excitement, strength, sex, passion, speed, danger.
Blue –(listed as the most popular color) trust, reliability, belonging, coolness.
Yellow –warmth, sunshine, cheer, happiness
Orange — playfulness, warmth, vibrant
Green — nature, fresh, cool, growth, abundance
Purple –royal, spirituality, dignity
Pink — soft, sweet, nurture, security
White –pure, virginal, clean, youthful, mild.
Black –sophistication, elegant, seductive, mystery
Gold — prestige, expensive
Silver — prestige, cold, scientific

One caveat to the above list was to be aware that the impact of color varied considerably by region and to be mindful of local variations. With that in warning in mind, the article laid out a simple hypothetical example about how insight about color could influence a marketing campaign.

Let’s say that you are selling books for young children, but you are marketing to grandparents. You’d probably design the books in bright, primary colors (reds, blues, yellows) to appeal to the children who will use them. However, the marketing materials (web site, brochures, etc.) would be designed with grandparents in mind. You might decide to go with blues (trust, reliability), pinks (nurture, sweet, security) and yellow (happy, playful).

While the article is targeted at designers, I think it is very relevant for stock photographers. If designers are thinking about the impact of color on their audience, it is bound to affect their purchase decisions. As a result, while this information shouldn’t dictate the look and feel of your shoots, it should be a useful input in your pre-production process.

I’d love to hear your perspectives on the ideas above and whether you think about color in this way when planning an executing shoots.

(I was pointed to the article by a great list of Design Oriented resources on PSDTUTS)

Diego Cervo (terrific microstocker and happy LookStat user!) has a great article on his pre-production process posted at The Factory by Moodboard. As with most production activity (in any domain) the more you can figure out up front, the more efficiently you’ll spend your resources. His site is being worked on but you can check out his portfolio at Shutterstock to see his awesome work.