Why 'color of the year' is a cohesive conspiracy and why understanding 'context' is more important rather than a single color

 If we consider the global apparel and fashion business, the market size is $758.4 billion (businesswire, 2018) which largely propagates, influences and impacts the business of color across the other industries like accessories, automobiles, gadgets, home, media and advertising, digital marketing and web design etc. The business of fashion is predicted to become $1182.9 billion by 2022 and hence the color will be more significant to create right ‘impact’ on mankind.

In an article published by the University of Melbourne mentions that 89% of the time colors influence our decisions, and is the primary reason for why we buy particular products. In a ‘colorful’ yet culturally diversified and plural country like India, Color has been always a crucial element in our religious, social and cultural existence. Moreover, colors can impact our hormonal surge, especially the ‘excitement hormone’ Dopamine. Hypothalamus (which has no role in forming the image as Visual Cortex) also gets impacted with colors via signals from retinal ganglion cells (present in the eyes apart from Rod and Cone cells). The hypothalamus is responsible for secretion of multiple hormones and also controls body’s self -regulation system such as sleep and stress. Colors directly target the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) that functions and operates under involuntarily and subconscious control. The ANS innervates and regulates cardiac muscles, smooth muscles, internal organs, glands and blood vessels through either the sympathetic nervous system or parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system aims to mobilize the body during activity and extreme conditions, and the parasympathetic nervous system that performs to conserve the bodies energy. Therefore, the ANS system must work to keep the body’s blood pressure, contraction and dilation of blood vessels, temperature equilibrium, sweating and the gastrointestinal tract in balance. Colors can affect the balance of the ANS system as certain wavelengths of colours create immense electrical impulses that activate photoreceptors in the body. When a certain colour is visualized the photoreceptors in the eyes relay the message which is directly sent to and identified by the retino-hypothalmic tract, that leads directly from the retina, and to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus sends neurons to the spinal cord in the thoracolumbar region that fires neurons to the sympathetic trunk. These neurons initiate blood vessels to either; constrict or dilate. Vasoconstriction and vasodilation leads to either an increase or a decrease in heart rate. An increase in heart rate will activate sweat glands that can stimulate sweating, depending on the color visualized.

The excitement and rush through colors are subconscious and cannot be explained unless one digs deeper in our personal mental space and ‘conscious/ subconscious experiences’ which can be ‘earned or presumed’. I always stress upon the fact that the colors can impact us in two different layers/ spaces. One in our personal space and other in social space. Human are essentially a social animal, so to remain as such we do accept/reject/ compromise the social norms. Colors are also part of these norms. For example, in most of the auspicious occasions in India Black has been marked as non-inclusive (apart from few rituals/ practices). Similarly, black has been ‘perceived’ as the color of ‘protest’. However, in our personal space Black might be an absolutely soothing color, especially for the millennials and Gen Z.

In India, a Color never stood isolated unlike west where ‘color of the year’ has been a norm as propagated by the color marketing agencies and has gained zombie-like followers across the industry. Colors here always stood with their stories (mythologies, beliefs, folklore and personal stories), context, color ratios ( relationship with other colors), color emotion (intensity of impact) and social values. In India, color “Shyam” not only means blue but also denotes a toned-down white/ tone up black depending upon the contextual emotion. Hence, to develop a design with the right color impact one must design the most suited ‘color story’ that touches not only 'social space' but also one’s 'personal space'.

‘Color of the year’ hardly impacts any such space as it’s wide, void and doesn’t show its ratio with other colors or tells the ‘story’ of its existence in the existing context of products that carries the color. However, it makes sense for the business as a single color is easy to promote, map and measure the 'success' ("look, the color of the year we have predicted has appeared in the cover of *** magazine, yey a success indeed") and push them across the globe (even when the context of such color or its individual existence makes no sense in various social space or personal space). However, once the season is over, the so-called color of the year appears 'foolish'. They can not withstand the mega mindsets neither can impact a wide-time period.

Stay tuned to read more in my upcoming book or DM for a deep-dive color workshop.

(Content is copyright to Dr. Kaustav SenGupta)