The Color Purple
1st edition — by Patrick McNeil — Apr. 6, 2007
The Design Element
Finally the color purple! I have had many requests for this over the last year, and it has taken me forever to get around to it. Many of these samples were in fact collected nearly a year ago! So needless to say, some of these sites have certainly changed, I keep them however for the lack of purple in use. Seems this is a seldom used color.
Certainly the color is seldom used, and I can't help but wonder why. It isn't a bad color. It looks quiet nice when used well. I believe the key is in that it is perceived as being too feminine. This certainly doesn't have to be the case of course. Take a look at
BioKleen for example. The site is absolutly gorgeous. They sell environmentally safe soaps and such. Now, I don't want to get myself into hot water, but who do you think soap is generally marketed to? It seems pretty clear that the site is marketing to women since they know that is their primarily audience. I don't know many men who would be shopping around for the safest soap. So they know who their audience is and out comes purple!
Pink is the close sister of purple and it has no problem finding abundant usage. I believe this is because it comes across more as a hip and trendy color. Pink is the new black you might say, while purple is, well purple is just purple. It seems it is a real challenge to turn purple into something stylish. One such example comes from a creative portfolio, that of
Adhemas Batista. He has worked with a darker more gray purple, and not the super saturated purple you might see your 12 year old neighbor girl wearing. Certainly his artwork looks stunning on this purple framework. The purple really sets off the richness of his artwork.
And of course, we can not escape the obvious religious connotations of this color. According to the easter story in the Bible we find that purple robes were placed on Jesus prior to his crucifixion. They were of course mocking him because they had conquered this "king of the Jews." It seems this is the root of purple and Jesus connection. Strangely you seldom find purple used in a church related site. Seems an obvious connection to make, and yet few do. One such example is
cofradiadelbuenjesus.org. The site is a bit over the top, but they have really pushed the richness and nobility of the color purple.
Connotations of purple:
Royalty, prosperity, wealth, Easter, Jesus, spirituality, wisdom, healing, nobility, romantic, delicate, cheerful, feminine, justice, mystery, mourning, death, humility, and purity.
Sample Usage
Links
Genopal (Color pallet creation software)
COLOURlovers (Excellent color pallet collections)
Kuler - pallet builder from Adobe /
ColorBlender.com (The
best tool I have found for easily creating beautiful color pallets)
Great color browsing resource (Named colors, by hue, etc)
Color
Scheme Generator
Color
Blender (On MeyerWeb)
Color In Motion
Color Schemer Online v2
Color Schemer Gallery
Color Symbolism
