Colours in magazines

1. 5 main colours: black, white, red, yellow, purple

2. Connotations

• Black: power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery
• White:  light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity; considered to be the colour of perfection.
• Red: associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love; emotionally intense color; brings text and images to the foreground
• Yellow: associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy; produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy;  spontaneous color; seen before other colors when placed against black: often used to issue a warning
• Purple: associated with royalty; symbolizes power, nobility, luxury, and ambition; associated with wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic

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Planning:

My magazine colour palette:

My magazine will be based on 5 colours: blue, red, yellow, black and white.

The top three colours are primary colours, they work well together and could all be associated with rock music. Also, after doing a bit of research, I found out that primary colours were very popular in the 80's. As my target audience will mainly be people who listen to 80's music, it seemed fitting to use these for my magazines. However, mixing primary colours together can make the magazine look very childish as they are the colours most used by children. The black and white, which are very simple and more grown-up colours, should even this out and make it look less like a children's magazine. These basic colours will also allow for the primary colours to stand out more meaning that they can be used to emphasise and accentuate certain features of the magazine.

• Dark blue: knowledge, power, depth, integrity, seriousness
• Red: energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination, passion, desire, love
• Yellow: joy, happiness, intellect, energy
• Black: power, elegance, formality, death, mystery
• White: light, goodness, innocence, purity, perfection

The connotations of these colours all have something to offer to the magazine. The power represented by black, blue and red gives the magazine a stronger effect, the intellect and knowledge associated with blue and yellow represent the information given to the readers and the white allows for a sense of innocence and purity to integrate itself into the magazine. Their other meanings are also very important. For example, the mystery associated with black could compel audiences to want to read on and find out more. Also, the danger created by the colour red could attract readers as the target audience are mainly teenagers who are looking for fun and a way to rebel and to whom danger is considered exciting.