Color Transforms Design

http://www.ecovelo.info/2010/05/10/the-rolling-stop-and-a-confession/

How does color transform a specific design? Imagine if a well known design were to change its color suddenly, what would be the result? Let's take a stop sign; it does say "STOP" and it maintains its octagonal shape. However, imagine the sign were suddenly changed, perhaps to green or yellow.

Red stands out among all other factors found in the environment. It is easily distinguishable against foliage, because plants are typically green (red's complimentary color). The red also stands out against the blue of the sky, or any neutrals found in nature or urban settings; such as browns, grays, etc. It is pretty easy to see why red was chosen for the stop sign.

http://www.worth1000.com/entries/188559/stop-sig

 What if the sign was green? Well, this probably wouldn't work so well. The green would blend in with any foliage in the area. Additionally, as green and blue are analogous colors, green would not stand out. Also, as green is typically understood as a command "to go," it could get confusing. Of course, the green light could always be changed to another color to indicate drivers should accelerate, but then it creates even more complications.

http://www.myparkingsign.com/MPS/article_Yellow-Stop-Sign.aspx

What about yellow? Now yellow would stand out against most other relative colors in the environment (both urban and natural). However, what about all the other traffic signs? Most of them are yellow too. Now, to avoid confusion, if a stop sign was changed to yellow, we would have to find a new color for all the other signs.

Here, we can see that the appealing aspect of red is that it stands out from other colors. It is dependent on the world around it. As Josef Albers says in his book, Interaction of Color, we never experience colors alone; how we perceive colors is relative to other colors. Green cannot be used for stop signs and green lights that indicate acceleration. Yellow cannot mean stop, slippery roads, lane ends/merge over, and all the other signs; it's just too much for one color.