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Treading the line between aggressive red and restrained blue, purple occupies a cryptic middle ground. Why is purple divisive? Perhaps in part because purple has long been associated with ambiguity, mystery, and magic. According to a recent YouGov survey the most likely answer is going to be blue, followed by red and green. Don’t agree? Ask your friends and colleagues what their favorite color is. Look to yellow’s close neighbors, orange and lime green, for more color palette options that bring out the best in purple. This means that citrus shades are the perfect balancing color contrast for purple. Purple’s complementary color is yellow because purple sits opposite yellow on the color spectrum. This means that violet occupies its own place at the end of the spectrum of light and has its own wavelength as a result. While purple is a mix of red and blue, violet is considered to be a ‘spectral’ color. Scientific evidence, however, points to a much clearer definition of both purple and violet. In Germany, this particular color is sometimes called purpurrot (‘purple-red’) to avoid confusion. Pourpre (purple in French) contains more red and less blue of the color thought of as “purple” in the United States and the U.K. In France, purple is considered to be closer to a version of violet with dark red tones. For example, the ancient version of purple we now refer to as Tyrian purple ranged from deep red to blue-purple, depending on how the dye was made. Purple sits closer to red, while violet sits closer to blue.Ĭulturally and geographically, the definitions of violet and purple vary and, in some cases, overlap.
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Violet sits next to purple on the color spectrum and is often confused with and/or associated with purple. Purple sits in a more ambiguous place between the two. Red is often perceived as dominant and aggressive, while blue is calmer and more soothing.
#Colors that go with purple license#
(See below for notes on blue’s true neighbor color, violet.) License this color wheel image adapted from contributor Antun Hirsman. If you look at a traditional painter’s color wheel, you’ll see that purple sits between red and blue. No matter how you choose to design your logo, be it with a logo creator or other tool, your logo’s personality is rooted in its colors – are you a bold seagreen-fuschia, or maybe a soft yellow-white? By learning your way around color combinations, you can create a logo design that tells your audience exactly who you are.The two colors that make purple are red and blue. So what does this mean for your own logo? You can bet that a hundred cups of coffee and millions of dollars went into the original logo designs of some of these powerful brands – with much of the focus likely having been on the color combinations. Still, it may not seem like much thought went into the logo color combinations mentioned above – aren’t they just the logical choice for what those particular brands do? That’s because color psychology plays a monumental role in branding colors influence our perception and make us feel a certain way, even if we don’t always realize it on a conscious level. Of COURSE the YouTube play button is red and white and McDonald’s arches are a happy yellow – it just makes sense. When you think about the logos of major brands, you probably just take the colors they use as a given.
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