What Colors Mean In Different Cultures [Infographic]

Ah colors. Though it’s only reflected light emitting different frequencies of the photon wave spectrum, colors are often much more than just that. For many they can describe emotions, nations, ideas, or even memories. In the art world, color can be a crucial element in the expression of a painter (Rothko) But just like many other cultural discrepancies, the meaning of color tends to change as you move around the globe. This infographic aims to tackle the very subject of how we associate colors with various feelings and ideas of different cultures around the world.

Dividing into 10 subgroups – Western/American, Japanese, Hindu, Native American, Chinese, Asian, Eastern European, Muslim, African, and South American, these broad regions are divided on this circular graph to show how each culture would choose to represent a facet of emotion or idea by color. Some are unanimous – Red for passion, black as evil – while others are completely different – Respect ranges from grey to white to silver to gold depending on which region of the world you are from. Of course it cannot be denied that color is a subjective device and there are many subcultures that probably dispute their assigned colors; it must be said – colors do have meaning.

Every culture associates colors with different ideas and emotions. In the U.S., we assign red to hate or anger, blue to sadness, and green to ecology. Do you know how other countries interpret color? The differences may be very surprising. For whatever reason, humans desire to represent themselves by color and commonly create manifestations of daily life within these colors. Except the color-blind. I don’t know what the hell they think about any of this. via