There have been many researches done in psychology concerning color perception and its connection with emotional state. Not claiming to be a pioneer in the field of studying color psychology, I took previously defined color characteristics which are considered common (of course, relatively common), and tried to define the color of our bank system.
So, let’s get familiar with main characteristics of certain colors:
- Red – it is an active color associated with healthy ambitions, movement, and decisiveness. It expresses an urge, persistence and passion.
- Orange – it is associated with business and career, and also with vital force, courage, ardor and leadership skills. It excites liking to a person.
- Yellow – it is associated with wisdom, mental activity and intelligence.
- Green – it is associated with life, birth and nature. It symbolizes growth, development, money (dollars), prosperity and wealth.
- Blue – it is associated with honesty, sincerity, faithfulness. It is a peaceful, tranquil and soothing color.
Hence, following color description logic, we could suppose that all banks must necessarily bear green color (money, dollars). But it is not actually so, as the most preferred color among banks is red, perhaps because it expresses activity and decisiveness. Blue color also ‘leaves behind’ the dollar color, and most probably attracts by its honesty and tranquility.
Most banks of Top-10 have ‘green’ coloring, a little less have ‘red’ one. General ‘color distribution’ by way of example of 50 biggest banks looks as follows:
- Red (28%) – Ukrsotsbank, Nadra Bank, Alfa Bank, FUIB, Ukrprombank, and others.
- Blue (26%) – Ukrexim Bank, Bank Forum, VTB, Ukrgasbank, Rodovid Bank, and others.
- Green (20%) – Privat Bank, Ukrsibbank, OTP Bank, Oschadnybank, Finance and Credit Bank, and others.
- Yellow (10%) – Reiffeisen Bank Aval, Prominvest Bank, Megabank, Clearing House Bank, and others.
- Others (10%) – Citibank, Dongorbank, Kyivska Russ Bank, Calyon Bank, MTB, and others.
- Orange (6%) – Swedbank, ING Bank, Swedbank invets, and others.
What does it lead to? What grasps your attention at once is activity and even some kind of aggression of the ‘red’ banks group, and it is not surprising as they naturally have to be active and persistent if compared to their competitors. The blue ones are less active, even static to some degree, more measured and, as it seemed to me, more open. The green ones are also not that active (if not to take into account OTP Bank), and are corresponding to their color characteristics – wealth and development. I didn’t manage to find anything definite about the yellow and the orange ones, probably, because there are much less of them.
Color features, its perception and associations with certain characteristics and processes are not made up out of whole cloth, but they are studied and described in examples of learning many human nature manifestations (mythology, archetypes, religion, preferences, associations, etc.). Coming from this we can suppose to some degree of certainty (as far as it is possible in ‘inexact’ sciences) that ‘color’ of a bank is defined not by a common designer’s or an owner’s wishes. Most probably, the existing consistency with bank development and its color decisions is implied in corporate standards of behavior in a certain bank. For the same reason, to my mind, ‘re-branding’ attempts have been made when along with logo and color changes bank changes its development strategy (and probably its direction).
All the banks, as well as all the colors, deserve being respected and right to exist which is confirmed by the fact that at all the activity and aggressiveness of the red banks the green, the blue and others exist, develop and draw attention. As there exist other not the least, or possibly the most significant of the aspects of bank’s development and prosperity, for example, development strategies, quality range of products, intelligent staff, well-built business processes, advertisement campaign, and so on and so forth. But this is what we are going to speak about next time. :)
