Colours and Their Meaning

Blue:

• trust, loyalty, honesty
• one colour most free of cultural bias worldwide
• not good colour for food as it is perceived as inedible
• dominates seascapes but rarely seen in landscapes

Red

• strongest colour that signfies danger, passion, power, lust, energy, excitment and love
• favored colour for Chinese as it keeps evil away and means long life
• active, competitive, daring, aggressive, and impatient

Purple

• leadership, respect, weath, passion, magic, mysticism, mystery, ceativity, ideas
• hardest colour to mix
• light purple is fun and casual - suggesting springtime
• dark purple is heavy and can be overpowering

Yellow

• bright, gets attention - used for warnings
• warm, playful, happy, inviting and stimulating
• can indicate sickness

Orange

• strong personality, confident, creative, adventurous, cheerful
• grabs your attention
• warmth, fire and flames, adventure, excitment
• orange has the power of red but is less intense

Green

• newness, regeneration life, growth, health
• energy, faith, money (not universal)
• most restful colour to the human eye
• contentment, harmony, freshness, caring, moral and sensitive

Brown

• sustenance, smplificy, comfort, quality
• credibility, neatural, stability, harmony, renewal, history
• Pink
• most often used in confectionary
• passion and purity, romance

Black

• strength, determination, power, formailty
• top of the line, class, mysterious
• few logos are basic black
• suggests evil and darkness

Grey

• really classy, corporate
• like black but less bold

Source: Blue is Hot, Red is Cool: Choosing the Right Colour for Your Logo by David Carter (2001)

More information on colours and their meaning.

Guides

A Simple Web Developer's Guide to Color and Practical Color Theory for People Who Code

CSS Colours (MDN)

Who Can Use for Color Combinations

Hex Naw Color Accessiblity tool

Giving Colors More Colorful Names

Equating Color and Transparency

Natural colour palettes for UI design

Hex Color Picker 

Playing with Colours

Colour Tips

• Red in product design suggests competition so leads to haggling, lower bids, or increased bids if a limitation is in place (i.e. limited quantity).
• The correct yellow is important. Avoid yellow clothing - unattractive.
• Yellow lures people to your door. Yellow lures them along - spend less time. Does this work for a checkout?
• Eating more carotenoids gives skin a healthy colour.
• Blue/red paper avoid, use yellow (ex. sticky note) as it triggers thinking.
• Green is a problem colour in vehicles. Yet exposure to green enhances creativity; go view some nature.
• Even a brief and a small amount of green. Green increases intrinsic motivation. Be more creative - use green paper. Sustained exposure to greenery is good.

Colour Resources

Everything you Need to Know about Color

A Nerd’s Guide to Color on the Web

10 Color Inspiration Secrets Only Designers Know About – Design School 

10 sets of watercolour brushes for Photoshop

100 Brilliant Color Combinations: And How to Apply Them to Your Designs – Design School

25% of the people have a 4th cone and see colors as they are ;p

Coffee is the color

Coblis — Color Blindness Simulator | Colblindor 

Cohesive Colors | A tool for creating more cohesive color schemes.

Color Alchemy with Less: Creating Color Schemes and Palettes

Color Hunt

Color Theory for Designers, Part 1: The Meaning of Color - Smashing Magazine 

Color Theory For Designers, Part 2: Understanding Concepts And Terminology - Smashing Magazine

Color Wheel - Color Calculator | Sessions College

Coolors - The super fast color schemes generator! 

Couleurs

How I Work with Color — Medium 

HTML Color Codes 

Material Design Color Palette Generator - Material Palette

Palettab, For Chrome

Snazzy Maps - Free Styles for Google Maps 

Style tiles

Stylify Me - Online Style Guide Generator

The great RGB guessing challenge

The Psychology of Color in Marketing and Branding

Least common colour on the web

uiGradients - Beautiful coloured gradients

Understanding Color Psychology for Impactful Web Design - Designmodo 

Colour Palette Generator

Color Contrast Tools

Colour Contrast Analyzer

Luminosity Colour Contrast Ratio Analyser