Colour psychology might be universal, but cultures are different. No matter what the “natural” effect of a colour on people is, when you’ve been exposed to a certain cultural meaning attached to a colour, the natural effect doesn’t play a huge role anymore.
Cultural differences can make or break a design
The meaning of yellow can transport warmth, as this colour is most prominent in the sun. But when we use it in the American market, you are confronted with a cultural priming of cowardice attached to that colour.
In Japan, yellow has the exact opposite meaning. The Japanese culture has primed its people to think about courage when seeing the colour yellow.
Someone is feeling blue = he’s feeling sad, but only in English speaking countries. In Hinduism, on the other hand, blue is strongly connecting to Krishna and resembles love and joy.
Research images of funerals in your target market
The most impactful problems can arise if you think about death. In many countries black is the typical colour you see when attending a funeral. As black is everywhere we go, we can get away with using black in designs. Only few people look at the Nike Swoosh logo and associate the black colour with death and funerals.
But in other countries black is not the primary colour in funerals.
In Thailand purple is the symbolic colour of death. This colour is typically worn by widows during the phase of grief. And as purple is not around us everywhere we go, a design using that colour is much more strongly associated with death.
If your designs are being used in different markets, provide colour variations for each to your clients to get around associations you don’t want to invoke in your target audience.