Red, white and green are the colors of the Mexican flag. Put them on paper party plates and it’s fiesta time — or maybe not. Like putting the red, white and blue of the American flag on paper party plates, the color combination is “correct” and it works, but it’s most appropriate for a Fourth of July party, not for a Memorial Day picnic or Christmas dinner.

Color use is not a slam dunk. I see this with manufacturers who put a “Latin Color Palette” on a set of sheets or towels, slap a Spanish name on it and expect that they’ve done their part reaching the Latino market. This is especially annoying when the front person isn’t obviously Latino. A few years ago Sears and Ty Pennington did this with a design in his licensed signature line of bedding.

So, what’s so significant about the arrangement of colors? How a person experiences a color is totally dependent upon the other colors around it and that color. Just like the old adage, “birds of a feather flock together,” we judge a color by the company it keeps and the places it hangs out. In fact, the entire “environment” around the color both physically and psychologically comes into play in the viewers mind.

A particular hue may be the perfect brown for one person and look like something the dog left behind to the next person. And depending where that color is (on the wall or not) it may look even more like something negative rather than positive. The right color in the right place at the right time is amazing. In the wrong place and time, that same color may a bit off-putting or even downright revolting. Remember, it’s all about the positioning of the color and the viewer.

www.CristinaAcosta.com

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