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If you were going to pick what you considered the friendliest color on earth, which one what would you choose? I didn’t say the happiest, just the friendliest. I’ll give you a few hints. We saw lots of it in the 1960’s, the time of “free love” and “flower children.” Think back to the color of the couch or the walls of a very dramatic/bold aunt or friend of your mom’s. Is it becoming clearer? ORANGE!

Color’s Best Friend
Orange alone is not “the” trendy color itself, but rather the best friend of trendy colors like chartreuse, violet, lime-green, magenta, or shocking pink. During any given trend season, they will go everywhere together to make bold design statements. Orange creates an atmosphere or environment of surprise when it accompanies its trendy friends. It makes a “young” statement, and as the Baby Boomers try to hold onto their youth, they are increasingly embracing the color orange. Orange trucks are a hot item now for kids and cool parents.
Orange, a bold color that stands out wherever it goes, is derived from an equal combination of red and yellow (for you purists, truly one part magenta primary and two parts yellow primary). Yellow is the first color detected by the retina and is why we see orange bolder than red. Rarely missed are a few orange California poppies in a field and nothing is more vivid than a whole field of poppies.
Vivid color schemes tax the viewer’s eye after long periods of time, creating discomfort, much like a brash personality does, leading some to call these color schemes tacky. Consider this when you choose to go the bold route with orange and its trendy friends. Striking color combinations often include orange. Blue, opposite on the color wheel from orange, is often the accompanying color in striking color schemes that balance things. Many opposites on the color wheel complement each other and work well in a color scheme, but orange and blue seem to clash when shown together in their pure forms. Pure blue competes for the eye’s attention, creating tension and when shown with orange, makes the viewer uncomfortable after a short time period. However, blue works well with orange in many hues and currently, you see turquoise and orange together in print media and fabric prints.
Orange is excellent in the workplace for attracting attention, exciting the emotions, heightening motivation, and creating a faster work pace. The most sociable hue, it is known to stimulate optimism, confidence, tolerance, and a sense of community. But use it in small doses. Orange’s high visibility makes it the international community’s color of rescue and the color for outdoor safety gear due to its high visibility.

A Softer Side
When added to orange, a big dose of the cold color white lends true feminine softness to a color scheme as it approaches soft peach. The white pushes orange’s overt friendliness to its feminine, “romantic” side. Aligning white and orange side by side does not achieve the same result — orange reads hot and white reads cool, so you end up with the feeling of a walk on a tropical beach. Nothing is more casual and laid back than orange in partnership with white. Truly, this is an “opposites-attract” situation that creates a fun time.
Orange moves to a more welcoming place when yellow is added and it becomes an amber color. Generally, restaurant walls are a hue of yellow-orange or gold. This color invites the customer to be comfortable and linger, as well as return often to this place of sanctuary. The color of a beautiful fall day, this softened orange slows life down and makes it enjoyable. Perhaps the almost religious experience it generates is why the robes of Buddhist monks are saffron in color. This amber color is considered expressive, neat, and intellectual.
I love analyzing color. Using color to influence our inner world, our chi, is fascinating as it relates to our personalities and temperaments. Color motivates us. There are color cures for problems ranging from paranoia to dullness. Visualized color and feng shui improve chi in general, but wearing certain colors can help as well. The five virtues — humanity, righteousness, decorum, wisdom, and good faith — are symbolized by five elements and each virtue is related to a color. Orange is a color associated with the earth and relates to truthfulness or good faith.
The Color Prophet, a 25-year study by The National Research Bureau, Inc. in Chicago, describes orange’s psychological influence as “intellect predominant.”
Faber Birren in Color in Your World, an intimate study of personality based on the colors people like and don’t like, observes interesting traits around the color orange. It was ranked very low in popularity by the general population and among women, it was at the bottom of the list but it does appeal to the Irish temperament. If you like orange, you lack the grand passion of the red type, but you have an equally luminous interest in life, are very social by nature, and are able to get along with all types of human beings from saints and sinners to intellectuals and the rich or poor. You are good natured and not very fond of being alone. Your jobs of choice are doctor, salesman, and politician.
Birren also noted that those who dislike orange are people who take life very seriously. No intimacy and openheartedness for them. No free spirits either. Friends are close and genuine, with no casual acquaintances.

Orange on Display
The display this month is composed of pieces from my personal collection of Fiestaware and a few small collectibles from the 1940’s, including some Bauer. The whimsical display is laid out in an eye-pleasing triangle. The orange-and-green patterned backdrop bears subtle vertical and horizontal stripes. It also represents a pattern using these two colors that is often seen in both Africa and Central and South America where on one continent they run vertically and on the other, horizontally.
Good luck in deciding how you are going to utilize orange in your displays, window designs, and store in general. Hopefully, you will use the information in good humor and will be motivated to discover more about color and how it impacts people and their reactions.


Renée Chappelle of Marketing Projects Unlimited is a retail consultant who specializes in store design and visual merchandising. You may contact her with inquiries at mpu@humboldt1.com or phone 707-845-3140; fax 707-442-1689.