What means death color?

The Meaning of Colors

Here is a table of colors and many of the meanings they tend to evoke, particularly in Western cultures. Notice how colors can mean very different things — it is not that the colors themselves have meaning, it is that we have culturally assigned meanings to them. For example, red means warmth because of the color of fire. Likewise, it means anger because of the increased redness of the face when it flushes with blood. Purple symbolizes royalty only because the only purple dye that was available for many centuries was very expensive.

• Temperature
  • The more towards the red end of spectrum you go, the hotter it gets.
  • The more towards the blue/purple end of the spectrum you go, the colder it gets.
  • Darker and more intense colors seem heavier.
  • Lighter colors seem, unsurprisingly, lighter.
  • Darker colors, such as burgundy red, tend to show opulence (they are often called ‘rich’ colors).
  • Dull shades, such as gray and dark browns indicate poverty.
  • Pastel and light shades are delicate, feminine, springtime.
  • Bright shades of primary colors indicate summer.
  • Earthy shades of brown, yellow and orange speak of nature and the fall.
  • Cool shades of white, black and blue represent winter.

  Use in retail and business

  Here are some ways in which colors are used in retail and business:

  • Red: Creates urgency — often used in sales and impulse sales
  • Green: Easy, calm — used to relax people
  • Blue: Creates trust — used by financial institutions such as banks
  • Navy blue: Cheaper — selling to price-sensitive
  • Royal blue: Urgency — selling to impulse buyers
  • Pink: Romantic — selling to women and girls
  • Yellow: Grabbing attention — used in displays and windows
  • Orange: Energizing — used to push for action, as in impulse buying
  • Purple: Calm — used in anti-aging products
  • Black: Power — selling luxury, aggressive products, or to impulse buyers

  Color can even change what you taste. Customers who bought 7-Up cans that had their color changed to yellow reported that the drink tasted more lemony.

  Gender effects

  Men and women see colors differently. Men are generally less sensitive to color, so a subtle shade of orangey-red will just appear red. Men also see green things as more yellow than women. Women are less sensitive to color in the detail of objects and also in things which are moving quickly.

  Red has been associated with romance and an American experiment offering dates with identical pictures of the same woman in different colored dresses found that a red dress was most effective in stimulating male desire.

  Cultural effects

  Remember that color can be culturally dependent. For example, although Black is the color of death in many countries, in China the color associated with death is White.

  Color	Non-Western meaning
  RED:	Eastern: luck, prosperity, happiness, long life, fertility, power

  Some Middle-East: mourning

  Africa: high rank

  Middle East: Islam, strength, luck, fertility, prestige

  Middle East: protection

  So what?

  So use the color in situations where you are trying to persuade. Use shades of brown and green to relax people and say you are environmentally friendly. Use red to kick people into action. And so on.

  McDonald’s, apparently, use red and yellow because red=fast and yellow=hunger (hence fast food!).

  Remember also that meaning is what we create. It does not exist in the color itself and individual meanings may or may not exist in different cultures and individuals.

  White

  

  White is an achromatic color that reflects all visible light of the spectrum. Its symbolism ranges across many things. The meaning of white varies from culture to culture.

  Contents

  Symbolism

  Animals

  Animals that are white are considered sacred to many cultures. For example, a white elephant was considered very sacred to the people of historical Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. White elephants are also found in Buddhism, as they are associated with the birth of Buddha. White buffalo were considered sacred among the Native Americans of the Great Plains, as they symbolized fertility and the gods of the earth.

  Western World

  White is the traditional color of bridal dress in both western (European) and Japanese weddings. In Western weddings, a white dress is thought to be symbolic of purity (the bride has not engaged in pre-marital sex). This is also said to be the symbolism of the veil. In Japanese weddings, white is to symbolize the «death» [citation needed] of their former family and their introduction into their new family.

  In some Asian cultures, white is considered to be a color that represents death. [8] White also represented death in ancient Egypt, representing the lifeless desert that covered much of the country; black was held to be the color of life, representing the mud-covered fertile lands created by the flooding of the Nile and giving the country its name (Kemet, or «black land»). The association of white with purity and peace is used by many religions. In Judeo-Christian tradition, white represents the purity and divinity of God’s Word given to his followers.

  White and black has the biggest visual contrast, this can easily be associated to other opposite concepts such as day and night or good and evil. White often represents purity or innocence in Western Civilization, [4] particularly as white clothing or objects are easy to stain. In most Western countries white is the color worn by brides at weddings. Angels are typically depicted as clothed in white robes. Healing or «good» magic is called White magic. [5] In early film Westerns the stereotypically «good guy» wore a white hat (earning them the name «White Hats«) while the «bad guy» wore black (earning them the name «Black Hats«). This has given rise to the use of the names black hat and white hat for people who abuse and counter abuse of computer systems respectively. In popular culture this idea is sometimes reversed to play on reversal of stereotypes.

  In taoism which has great influence in Eastern culture Yin and yang is usually depicted in black and white, depicting the two colors as opposites. The two opponents in board games of abstract strategy often has one as white, such as go, chess, and checkers.

  Europe

  In heraldic symbols such as that of England, white represents the metal silver. In turn, that symbolizes brightness and virtue.

  Poets such as Sylvia Plath use the colour white to symbolise death.

  East Asia

  In historical and modern East Asia, white represented the element Metal, Autumn, West, and death. Its association with death led to its use as the traditional color of mourning. Also, it represented ghosts because white is an intangible color that hides nothing.

  Ancient Egypt

  Much like in East Asia, white was seen as the colour of death and decay, associated with the infertile desert and with chaotic gods like Set and Sekhmet. However, due to it’s simplicity, deities were often depicted wearing white clothes.

  Colours of mourning around the world

  In many parts of the world, black is traditionally the colour of death, mourning and funeral fashion, but it is not the universal colour of mourning everywhere.

  Here, we look at the colours worn at funerals and in mourning across different cultures and explore some of the significance of colour as we mourn, or celebrate the life of someone who has died.

  Black – sombre mourning

  

  Donning dark colours for mourning has been strongly associated with death and loss for centuries in the west and is a practice believed to date back to the Roman times.

  In Western cultures, black clothing was worn as a social symbol to let others know a person was mourning. This became an elaborate ritual when Queen Victoria, mourned the death of her husband, Prince Albert for 40 years. This inspired other Victorian widows to wear black widow’s weeds for between one and two years after the death of their husbands.

  It was also considered proper for a Victorian widow walking out in public to wear a mourning bonnet and black crepe veil over her face for the first six months. Widowers were expected to mourn their wives for only between three and six months and were able to go on with their lives wearing their everyday suit, which was usually a dark colour.

  Black jewellery made from polished stone, jet, was particularly popular in the form of mourning brooches and mourning rings. It also was also not uncommon for the bereaved to incorporate the intricately knotted or woven hair of the person who died into mourning jewellery, as a sentimental and tangible way of remembering a loved one.

  White – purity and rebirth

  

  In indigenous Australian culture, widows traditionally wore white mourning caps, or ‘kopis’ made from plaster. Worn throughout a grieving period which could last anywhere from a week to six months, the thickness of the plaster could represent the depth of the widow’s sorrow. At the end of her mourning period, the kopi would be placed on her husband’s grave.

  People in Eastern Asia wear white mourning clothes as a symbol of purity and rebirth.

  In Cambodia, the official religion is Buddhism, a faith which believes that when someone dies they are reincarnated, in a circle of life. The family of someone who dies wear white in the mourning process in the hope that their loved ones are reborn again.

  The idea of white mourning, otherwise known as deuil blanc in French, was formed during the 16th century when white was worn by bereaved children and unmarried women. The trend soon became a custom for the reigning queens of France, which inspired Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87) to follow suit after the loss of three immediate family members within a period of 18 months.

  Before Queen Victoria died in 1901, she left very detailed instructions of how she wanted white to play a part in her funeral. Not only did she wear her white wedding veil over her face, but she also requested white horses and a white pall over her coffin to be part of her send off.

  Red – honour and patriotism

  

  Red has different meanings, according to different cultures. In China, red symbolises happiness and is a colour that’s strictly forbidden at funerals. In South Africa, red has been adopted as a colour of mourning, representing the bloodshed suffered during the Apartheid era.

  After the death of South Africa’s national football goalkeeper and captain, Senzo Meyiwa, mourners packed a football stadium in Durban, dressed in red, while paying their respects to their national hero.

  Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu also wore red, in tribute to Nelson Mandela, at the former South African president’s funeral in 2013.

  The Rainbow Nation’s colour of mourning also takes up a section of the South African flag, with the red representing its struggle for independence.

  Purple – the colour of spirituality

  

  During Easter in Guatemala, Catholics mark Holy Week by reenacting the days leading to Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. During the Procession of the Holy Cross on Good Friday, men and boys dress in purple robes and hoods as a sign of mourning and a symbol of the pain and suffering of Christ.

  Many devout Catholics in Brazil also wear purple, alongside black, while mourning the loss of a loved one. In fact, it can be considered disrespectful and unlucky to wear purple if you are not attending a funeral, as the colour has a sacred, devotional meaning to it.

  In Thailand, purple defines sorrow, and is reserved for widows to wear while mourning the death of their spouse, while other funeral mourners are required to wear black at the funeral.

  Gold – a journey to the afterlife

  

  In ancient Egypt, gold was associated with eternal life and the all-powerful god Ra, whose flesh was believed to be formed from the precious metal. Imperishable, and indestructible, gold was the colour of royal mourning. As magnificent treasures discovered in ancient Egyptian burial chambers have revealed, Royals and well-born ancient Egyptians were well-prepared for their journey into the afterlife. It was believed that after their death on earth, kings and queens would assume their status as deities, with the famous gold death mask of boy king Tutankhamun reflecting his own place in the heavens.

  Grey – grieving in Papua New Guinea

  

  In Papua New Guinea, grey is the colour that comes from a light, stone-coloured clay that women apply to theirn skin, after the death of their husband. As seen in the picture above, this women is also wearing numerous loops of grey, grass seeds. Every day, the woman removes one of the necklaces. The mourning usually ends when the last loop is taken off, usually nine months after the man’s death. The woman pictured above has few necklaces on, suggesting she’s nearing the end of her mourning period.

  

  All the colours of the rainbow – a celebration of life

  Although religion and tradition are still an important part of many funerals, humanist and non-religious funerals are also gaining popularity in Australia.

  It may be the wish of the person who has died for mourners to wear bright colours, or the family may request you to wear a specific colour or ribbon in support of a charity. Usually, these details are supplied by the family or funeral director prior to the funeral. If you’re attending a funeral and unsure of the dress code, you may find our what to wear to a funeral guide helpful.