I went back to ultimate design principles to educate myself more about colour and gender, beyond blue and pink. I did this by looking into various colour studies conducted over the past 70 years. Some notes from a 2003 University of Washington research project conducted by student Joe Hallock.
Females
- Top three favourite colours: blue, purple, green
- Top three least favourite colours: orange, brown, grey
- Top three favourite colours: blue, green, black
- Top three least favourite colours: brown, orange, purple
- Among the favourite colours, green decreases in preference as both genders age.
- Among the least favourite colours, orange is increasingly disliked as both genders age.
Surprisingly, the sexes have a lot in common in terms of preferences.
Joe found that though men prefer blue more than women do, it is a favourite colour of both men and women of all ages. Blue was perceived as either can be strong and steadfast or light and friendly. Long considered a corporate colour, blue – especially dark blue – is associated with authority, intelligence, knowledge, depth and seriousness.
Green
Was favourite colour of men and women, the colour green signifies growth, renewal, health, the environment, balance and stability. Women favour cool, soft shades of green while men prefer clearer, brighter shades.
Purple
Purple is chosen almost exclusively by women as a favourite, and is strongly disliked by men. It is traditionally associated with nobility and power. Because purple is derived from mixing a strong warm colour (red) with a strong cool colour (blue), it has both warm and cool properties.
Black
Considered the negation of colour, black is conservative and goes well with almost any colour except the very dark hues. It also has conflicting connotations. It can be serious, formal and elegant on one hand and powerful, evil and aggressive on yet another.
Gender Differences
From Natalia Khouw's 'The Meaning of Colour for Gender' I looked at male reactions to various colours. Colour does more than just give us objective information about our world-it affects how we feel and react to thing. Dorcus (1926) found yellow had a higher affective value for the men than women and St. George (1938) maintained that blue for men stands out far more than for women. An even earlier study by Jastrow (1897) found men preferred blue to red.
Guilford and Smith (1959) found men were generally more tolerant toward achromatic colours than women. They also found 56% of men preferred cool colours, and 51% men chose bright colours. In a similar study, Plater (1967) found men had a tendency to prefer stronger chromas than women.
Humanity's Favorite Colours
As part of a recent study on gender norms, University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen asked nearly 2,000 men and women a simple question: "What's your favourite colour?" Blue turned out to be most popular across the board, followed by green for men and purple for women. The colour preferences break down as follows.
 |
| A sample of 1,974 men and women were asked whether they preferred purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, or pink.Credit: Phillip Cohen Family Inequality |
Cohen cautioned that he did not survey a random sample of the population, but rather a "convenience sample" of students, faculty and staff at his university, "However, when I controlled statistically for age, race/ethnicity, education level and student status, the gender pattern was basically unchanged, so that helps increase confidence that the result is not too heavily skewed by who I sampled,".
From all this I've concluded that blue is the go to, although 'stereotypical' my choice is valid because science. I think to play with blue and its hues would be a further experimentation to dive into, as it would be a shame not to implement the research into an aspect of the design.
Sources
Eysenck, H. J. (1941). A critical and exprimental study of color preferences. American Journal of Psychology, 54, 385-394.
Guilford, J. P. & Smith, P. C. (1959). A system of color-preferences. The American Journal of Psychology, 73 (4), 487-502.
Guerin, D. A., Park, Y., & Yang, S. (1995). Development of an instrument to study the meaning of color in interior environments. Journal of Interior Design, 20 (2), 31-41.
Plater, G. (1967). Adolescent preferences for fabric, color, and design on usual task. Unpublished master's thesis, Indiana State College, Terre Haute, Indiana.
http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/
http://www.livescience.com/34105-favorite-colors.html
