Product color emotional design considering color layout

Emotional experience and demand for product colors are important factors in users' decisions to buy and use a product. Therefore, accurately characterizing users' emotional responses of the product's color has become a significant consideration for product color design. However, a product color design problem exists in which it is challenging to accurately and efficiently position users' color image space because consumers have completely different image perceptions when encountering a large number of color schemes generated by different color spatial distributions. For this reason, this article proposes a product color emotional design method that considers the color layout. A table is built of an elemental composition for product color design, which contains color layout forms. This article also establishes a mapping model based on the semantic difference and back propagation neural network between the users' color image perceptions and the elements of the product's color design. The system recommends a color layout form that matches the users' emotional image goal through the k‐nearest neighbor algorithm, and then the form is initialized using a genetic algorithm. The system can realize the solution to the optimal product color scheme by optimizing and evaluating the population. Designers can make intuitive choices and decisions through the product color recommendation system. Through an example of color design for industrial vacuum cleaners, this article shows that the method has satisfactory feasibility and applicability for solving the problem of the optimization of product color design with color layout forms.     

The impact of signboard-building color combinations on color harmony and legibility

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of signboard-building color combinations on color harmony and legibility. Two hundred and three participants rated 54 signboard-building color combinations against two scales of color harmony and legibility. In this article, the terms “brick,” “stone,” and “glass” refer to three types of building exteriors used in the experiment (ie, brick masonry, greystone, and curtain walls, respectively). Major findings are as follows: (a) there was a positive linear correlation between color harmony and legibility in all three types of building exteriors, (b) the type of building exterior affected the color harmony and legibility of signboard colors, (c) no hue-related patterns were observed, (d) the effects of chroma differences on color harmony were weak and the effects of chroma differences on legibility were moderate, (e) the effects of lightness differences on color harmony and legibility were strong in brick, but the effects of lightness differences were weak in stone and glass, (f) white color combinations (ie, color pairs including white signboards) turned out to be the most harmonious and legible, and (g) color combinations of light signboards and dark buildings (negative polarity) were rated most harmonious and legible, with the exception of vivid red (positive polarity). The findings of this study provide insight into the characteristics of harmonious and legible colors in the context of signboard design.     

A systematic approach of predicting color preference on the basis of gray relational grade

During the color design process, it is critical to create diversified color schemes for various consumer groups. It is also important to allow members in a design team to brainstorm for creative ideas. A theory of inspecting natural color elements was proposed in this study based on the CIE 1976 (L*,a*,b*) (CIE 1976) color space and the fuzzy c‐means clustering method. A calculation model was built to determine people's preference for colors based on a serialized system. To determine which factors affect the prediction of consumers' preference for a series of products, a gray relational color preference system was used in combination with gray relational grade so that a designer can obtain reasonable prediction results. The proposed system recommends not only the optimal colors for a product but also the optimal color scheme for a series of products.     

Manifestation of depressive tendency in color perception and colors utilized in creating a self‐portrait

There are a large number of studies on color and its influence upon human emotions, but there have been only a few studies on the correlation between color and depressive mental disorders. This study used color preference, association, and creation of self‐portraits to explore the relationship between color and depressive tendency. In this study, 337 freshman design students participated in the experiment, and the center for epidemiologic studies‐depression scale (CES‐D) was used to determine the extent of depression in the subjects. After classifying the subject as “depressive tendency” and “no depressive tendency,” the semantic differential scale and color association methods were used to explore the subjects' emotional, cognitive, and perceptive responses to Munsell 14 colors. In the final portion of the study, the 233 subjects created a colored self‐portrait. The main conclusions found by this study are: (1) when color is used to determine whether subjects have depressive tendency, then the three colors of Yellowish Red, Purple, and Dark Gray are important discriminant variables. (2) those who have depressive tendency (DT) or do not have depressive tendency (NoDT) have similar results in color association, except when viewing dark Gray in association with abstract concepts, wherein DT subjects chose more negative emotional words such as “hopeless,” “fear,” and “depression”; (3) among the 233 self‐portraits, the existence of depressive tendency correlated with the colors used on the face in the self‐portrait. From the above conclusions, this study finds that there is much association between depressive tendency and color perception. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 34, 84–92, 2009.     

Color‐emotion associations,designing color schemes for urban environment‐architectural settings

Color in urban design has become an important issue, each city may present different colors which help to define and describe its architectural features. In the study, color in urban design with architectural setting is studied, façade colors are analyzed with a specific emphasis on the following research questions; “Can color schemes be designed in respect to color‐emotion associations? ” and “Are color‐emotion associations affective while designing architectural setting‐urban environment?.” Non‐color experts, 170 people, from different European and non‐European countries were asked to match the most appropriate adjectives with the given street views in accordance to their color schemes. In the first step, the effect of color is identified in relation to architectural environment‐urban setting, second the relative effect of color is studied as a component of the material. A categorical specification on color cognition and linguistic level of representation is attempted. The results can be a starting point to highlight the importance of preparing color schemes in regard to color‐emotion associations. Abstract color schemes may also provide us an idea about image setting, especially at design process stage. In the study, keywords are linked as environment‐response pairs; such as quiet, calming, lively, exclusive, reserved, and natural. Human psychophysical structure such as “warm‐cool,” “heavy‐light” in regard to visualizing certain colors are evaluated and described in terms of building materials.     

Research on product color design decision driven by brand image

As one of the most important visual characteristics in a product system, color can arouse the user's emotional demands quickly. Due to the complexity of the user's emotional needs mining process, it can be expressed by color image adjectives. Meanwhile, product color trends that meet the user's emotional demands may help decision makers to anticipate a new market positioning and reduce the blindness in the product color design. In this study, the Gray theory combined with the Kansei engineering was used to mine the macro and microscopic factors in product color design decision process based on the product color brand image. The results showed that the constructed method could be used to guide the product color design that was to meet the user's emotional needs comprehensively and quickly. The method solved the problems that exist in the current product color trend prediction research and improved the accuracy of the correlation mining between product color design elements and brand image. Lastly, the color design of the mid-range sedan was taken as an example to prove the feasibility of the research approach. This is a new attempt to guide product color design decisions in two aspects, one is known from the results of product color trends quantitative prediction, and the other one comes from the correlation calculation between product color design elements and brand image.     

An interactive method for generating harmonious color schemes

We present an interactive visualization tool for generating color schemes that can be used by both professional artists and novice designers to improve their design efficiency. The method is developed on two color harmony principles of familial factors and rhythmic spans from conventional color theories. The interactive tool makes use of these principles for users to interactively generate colors palettes containing harmonious combinations in the hue, saturation, and lightness color space in as few steps as possible. A pilot study with 20 participants has shown that this tool provides efficient workflow, color‐scheme harmony, and intuitive interaction, demonstrating the usefulness of the method. This work contributes to an artistic‐theory driven harmonious color‐scheme generation and to interactive user interfaces visualizing color relationships. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 39, 70–78, 2014     

Experimental determination of the laws of color harmony. Part 4: Color preference and the color harmony content

In 1956, we decided at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics to start a large‐scale experiment on color harmony. The experiments and the processing of the experimental results have been completed in 2006. These experiments, described in this article, form a study of how much are people, participating in the experiment, influenced by their own personal color preference in judging the harmony content of a composition. These experiments have utilized the results of former (1958–1969) color preference experiments and the system of color preference indexes, which were developed by the generalization of those results. Within the framework of these experiments, conducted between 1998 and 2006 there were 24 compositions, shown to the participants, at first one by one, then in pairs and at last in groups of six. They had to assess the harmony content of the compositions and award a score on a scale between 0 and 10. Each composition possessed a specific amount of harmony content according to the rules of color space, based on the Coloroid harmony threshold and verified by former experiments. In these experiments the number of elementary observations were 135 568. The people participating in the experiment were approximately equal number of men and women, from the age group between 10 and 70 years. During processing, by using the color preference numerical indexing system, we compared the results of those experiments with the color preference of a similar age group, by using color compositions, identical to the ones used in the present experiment. We have found that the sensation of the color harmony and its intensity have a strong relation to how the observers relate to colors and also their color preferences. The sensation of color harmony is also influenced by the gender and the age of the observer. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 34, 210–224, 2009     

Quantitative evaluation of color harmony via linguistic-based image scale for interior design

In order to develop a computer-based color consultation system, a quantitative evaluation of color harmony for interior images is constructed by using a linguistic-based image scale. Conventionally, color harmony from any engineering perspective has received limited attention, because its successful evaluation requires the development of pleasure-related features. In this study, a new pleasure-related function of color linguistic distribution (CLD) is proposed to quantitatively represent the mental color impression of interior images upon a designed one-dimensional linguistic-based image scale of EXCITING-CALM. Supported by a database that includes fashion trends, the distribution state of CLD is capable of indicating the fashion trends in Taiwan. Also, on the image scale, the grade of color harmony can be measured by its CLD similarity to a reference harmony distribution (RHD). Evaluated results demonstrate that interior design is primarily dominated by (low) saturation and (high) brightness. Also, results based on CIE1976 L*a*b* and CIE1976 L*u*v* color spaces are observed to be better than those based on the hue-dominated method of Moon-Spencer theory in corresponding with human's linguistic similarity, questionnaire-based harmony evaluation, and social trends. Moreover, our solution percentage has been investigated as 72.3%, which is better than those of the Moon-Spencer theory and of the “Law of Inverse Ratios of Areas.” For application purposes, the proposed system is suitable to analyze the mental impression of products from the perspective of the customer. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Crosscultural comparison of color terms and preference of persimmon‐dyed fabric,Galchon

This crosscultural study was aimed at correlating color emotions and preference for persimmon‐dyed cotton fabrics known as Galchon. Cotton fabrics were dyed with persimmon powder, in a range of shades, and in some cases were also iron mordanted. Textile and fashion students from Jeju National University in Korea and North Carolina State University (NCSU) in USA participated in the visual assessment of dyed samples and were asked to scale their visual experience and state their emotion and preference for the terms “Bright,” “Heavy,” “Soft,” “Strong,” “Deep,” and “Like.” Korean observers used “Strong” for iron‐mordanted Galchon, and American observers did not associate “Bright” or “Deep” with weakly dyed fabrics. In addition to the subjective terms described, the color preference for samples was quantified using their CIE colorimetric attributes. For Korean observers, the results indicate a correlation between L^* and “Bright,” whereas for Americans a stronger correlation was obtained against “Soft.” American observers' results also show a relationship between C^* and the term “Warm,” especially for dyeings of Galchon at high concentrations. It was also found that iron mordanting affected responses from both groups but only influenced the color preference of Korean observers. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 40, 592–604, 2015     

A general framework to study the price‐color relationship in paintings with an application to Mark Rothko rectangular series

We propose a general framework to study the relationship between the price of a painting and its color‐related attributes. To this end we focus on four key aspects: dominant colors, features of the color palette, color harmony, and color emotions. We demonstrate the usefulness of this approach with an example based on Mark Rothko's post‐1950 paintings (the “rectangular” series), and auction data from the 1994 to 2018 period. We identify two distinct price‐color regimes in Rothko's market: (a) [1994‐2005], a period in which prices are explained mainly by the growing popularity of the artist regardless of the color attributes of the paintings sold; and (b) [2006‐2018], a period in which color‐related attributes explain most of the prices. Furthermore, we find that in this second period, the dominant colors and the diversity of the color palette, are by far the most relevant attributes that influence the price; color harmony and color emotions hold almost no explanatory power during this period. Finally, we propose a new metric based on the Herfindahl Index to describe color diversity; this metric seems to be promising at characterizing the effect of the color palette on the price of a painting.     

A study of color conspicuity for ease‐of‐use inference in visualization

Novice designers of visualizations need support to find easy‐to‐use color schemes for visualizations. This article introduces a method of conspicuity inference for a color selection support system that is applicable to a wide variety of visualizations. In previous research, data on color conspicuity by computer GUI interface were collected by having subjects adjust the relative sizes of two figures on a ground in order to find conspicuity balance. This article outlines a new conspicuity inference system, which uses a neural network to produce a color conspicuity value from the system RGB values of two figures and a potential ground. The output value is the ideal relative area of the two figures. This value is applied to visualization designs by weighting each conspicuity value with a ground coefficient, the relative size of every color in a design. Color selection and evaluation experiments show a significant relationship of conspicuity balance, as inferred by this system, for subjective ease‐of‐use evaluation scores for 200 novice designs. Topics for future research include developing the system's characteristically simple parameters within the limited scope and integrating conspicuity balance with other factors such as visibility, discriminability, and color harmony. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 27, 74–82, 2002; DOI 10.1002/col.10033     

A harmony-based approach to generating sequential color schemes for maps

Generating high-quality sequential color schemes for maps is challenging for most mapmakers. This article presents a harmony-based approach for automatically generating sequential color schemes for maps. The proposed approach consists of two steps: (a) color harmony quantification for sequential color schemes on maps and (b) color scheme generation using quantified color harmony factors. The approach was tested using three experimental maps, including the Chinese water body density index map, Chinese vegetation cover index map, and Chinese population density map. Effectiveness was evaluated by comparing color schemes generated by the proposed approach with those created by the probability-based method and ColorBrewer. Twenty-six participants were invited to rate each map color scheme using a 5-point scale. A t test was also used to examine the significance of the difference. The results show that the mean points of color schemes using the proposed approach are higher than those using the probability-based method, and the corresponding P-values are far lower than .05, which suggests that the proposed approach is better than the probability-based method and can improve the sequential color scheme quality in automatic ways. The mean points of color schemes created using the proposed approach are also slightly higher than or similar to those of ColorBrewer, which are well-known map color schemes manually designed by an experienced cartographer. This result further suggests that the proposed approach can meet the requirement of automatic generation for high-quality sequential color schemes on maps.     

A User‐Oriented Method for Preferential Color Scheme Generation

Harmony and preference are two important factors in constructing color combination for the purpose of color design. We presented a method for generating harmonious color scheme in a previous project. As an extension to the project, we propose here a method for generating color schemes that are based on user's preference. We considered color combinations as a set of color relations rather than a summation of specific color components (color elements); and we derived a model of six‐variable color relations, representative value of hue, representative value of saturation, representative value of lightness, span of hue, span of saturation, and span of lightness. With this model, color combinations can be expressed as specific parameters of the six‐variable model. Individual preferences are represented as certain parameters, from which new color schemes can be reconstructed to meet individual requirements. An interactive system for generating preferential color schemes is built with all these principles integrated. As a color design toolkit for user study, the system accesses user's preference features for color combinations, and provides new color schemes that fit the user's need. User study shows that both professionals and novices can generally acquire preferential color schemes of their own. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 40, 147–156, 2015     

Experimental determination of laws of color harmony. Part 6: Numerical index system of color harmony

The numerical index system of color harmony is intended to mark a great number of color pairs, optimally any number of existing color pairs, by a number between 0 and 100. This number expresses the extent to which a color pair is being felt harmonious by the average of people and the level of harmony content it possesses. The experiments described in this article have determined the basic data necessary to create this system. The series of the experiments have been done in two stages. The first stage, in which 24 test objects were presented to the experimental subjects, was carried out twice first in 1988–1990 and again in 2004–2006. Every test set was composed of eight compositions. The number of scores, given to each of the compositions, determined the harmony content of the color pair groups, whose members are formed from the saturated colors of different hues and from the members of the grey scale. In the second stage of the experiment, these data served as references for the experimental subjects. In the second stage, there were 192 tests. In these tests, there were different numbers of compositions each formed of different color pairs. One of the members of these color pairs was the member of the saturated color of the first experiment. The second member was always of different saturation and lightness for each of the compositions, purposefully chosen to match the saturated colors. Based on the experimental scores, we obtained a color harmony surface linked to the intersections with the coordinates in the Coloroid system. The color harmony surfaces and the distances between the related intersections indicate the harmony content of the color pair. The numerical values of these distances are called the color harmony index number of the color pair. These data make the creation of a color harmony indexing system possible, expressing the color harmony content of all possible color pairs, in the color space. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 2012     

Influence of a holistic color interval on color harmony

This study investigates how a holistic color interval, i.e., the nondirectional color difference between a pair of colors in a CIELAB uniform color space, influences perceived color harmony. A set of 1035 test color pairs displayed on a CRT was evaluated for the degree of harmony. These test color pairs consist of pairs combined from among the selected 46 test colors evenly distributed in color space. The subjects were asked to select their three preferred colors from these 46 test colors and then to evaluate the degree of harmony of the test color combinations. The color intervals (ΔE) of each test color combination were calculated and treated as values of an independent variable. In addition, the evaluated degrees of color harmony were considered as values of a dependent variable, in which statistical analysis confirmed the relationship: the degree of harmony is a cubic function of the color interval. Moreover, the plot of this relationship allowed us to identify four color intervals: roughly corresponding to the regions of first ambiguity, similarity, second ambiguity, and contrast in Moon and Spencer's model. However, our results indicated that Moon and Spencer's principles for classifying harmonious/disharmonious regions in terms of the color interval for three color attributes—lightness, chroma and hue—may be inappropriate in predicting perceived color harmony. As for the color intervals between a pair of colors considered as a function of the three attributes, the interval for lightness may have a predominant effect on color harmony, expressed in terms of a cubic relationship. Results of the study further demonstrated that the subject's choice of colors significantly influences perceived color harmony. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Col Res Appl, 26, 29–39, 2001     

Color appearance and color connotation models for unrelated colors

The purpose of this research is to investigate the color appearance and color connotation of unrelated colors. To investigate color appearance (i.e., brightness, colorfulness, and hue) for unrelated colors, 22 observers have answered their color appearance for 50 unrelated color stimuli using the magnitude estimation method. Perceptual data obtained by the experiment is compared with the color attributes data estimated by unrelated‐color appearance models, CAM97u and CAM02u. It is found that both models perform reasonably well but the performance of CAM02u is better than that of CAM97u. For investigating color connotation for unrelated colors, 32 observers have judged their color connotation for the 50 unrelated color stimuli using the 10 color connotation scales (i.e., “Warm – Cool,” “Heavy – Light,” “Modern – Classical,” “Clean – Dirty,” “Active – Passive,” “Hard – Soft,” Tense – Relaxed,” “Fresh – Stale,” “Masculine – feminine,” and “like – Dislike”), and semantic differential method is used for measurement. It is found that the color connotation models developed for related colors perform poorly for unrelated colors. Experimental results indicate that brightness attribute is confusing to estimate and does not affect color connotation significantly for unrelated colors. Based on the psychophysical data, new models for “Warm‐Cool”, “Heavy‐Light”, “Active‐Passive” and “Hard‐Soft” were proposed using CAM02u hue, brightness, and colorfulness. Color connotations for unrelated colors are classified into three categories, which “Color solidity,” “Color heat,” and “Color purity.” © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 40, 40–49, 2015     

Research on color harmony of building façades

In this study, the 28 primary colors and 11 complementary colors suggested by Chang et al in their investigation on building colors in Wanhua District of Taipei City were taken as color samples. The two-color combination mode was adopted to obtain 308 simulation photos, and two-color harmony was discussed from the perspective of visual evaluation using psychophysical tests. This study explored building façade color harmony in the CIELAB color space, and the relationship between the color attributes (hue, lightness, and chroma) and the color harmony, and between the differences of the color attributes and color harmony. It found that a high lightness of a building's primary color is associated with a high level of building color harmony, while the color harmony is reduced when the color falls in the green or blue sector in the CIELAB color space; a greater lightness difference between building façade colors is associated with a higher level of building color harmony, while the colors are disharmonized when they tend to the blue sector in the CIELAB color space. The contribution of this study is to summarize the principles for the application of building color harmony in urban renewal, and proposed suggestions on building color harmony in the urban renewal process.     

Hierarchical emotional color theme extraction

Artists usually carefully select different colors in artistic work so as to convey special visual and emotional feelings. Color theme extraction techniques can help users to acquire the color styles in an image. However, current color theme extraction methods ignore the emotional factors, and they can only provide a single theme result for an image as well, neither of which meet people's favor on different colors under different mood states. This article introduces the conception of emotional color theme, introduces the color emotion theory into color theme extraction, and proposes a novel emotion color theme extraction framework. To achieve these goals, we perform the theme extraction with emotion value of each pixel instead of color value. The emotional discrepancy is proposed between the colors in the theme to evaluate a color theme quality and prove it with color theme dataset. Then a data driven approach is adopted to optimize the color theme. Different from previous optimizing strategies, we built the emotional relation between the target theme and the candidate theme. Our method can enhance the color editing results of previous methods, e.g., for color transfer our results can demonstrate hierarchical emotions from a single reference image. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 41, 513–522, 2016     

Product color emotional design adaptive to product shape feature variation

When a user selects a product, he/she considers the emotional experience induced by the product color. However, when affected by product shape feature, the color image perception space of a user becomes more complex and dynamic. To address this problem, a product color emotional design method adaptive to product shape feature variation is proposed in this article. Based on psychological means, factor analysis and semantic differential methods are used to elucidate the mechanism for the formation of a color image perception space of a user influenced by product shape feature. Using support vector regression, a product color image evaluation model adaptive to product shape feature variation is constructed, and is then optimized via a genetic algorithm. A corresponding design system is constructed based on the method proposed in this article. A case study involving the design of a thermos for children is presented to demonstrate the operational procedure involved in the proposed method and to verify its performance. The results of the verification experiments confirm that the design scheme from system recommendation essentially meets the anticipated image target and assists the designer effectively. The method and system proposed in this study can generate a product color design scheme, which is unconstrained by shape feature and can satisfy user emotional preferences and needs, and have a certain applicability and practicability.