Culture & Color: What's the Fit?

(Thanks to Spanish translator Jesse Tomlinson for writing the guest blog below.)

What color is language? Communication? Translation?

Is translation black and white, or completely grey? Is it a speckled hen’s egg, or an image brought to life by words and cultural triggers that encompass feelings, sounds and colors? It’s whatever we make it! The color of a thing is what culture dictates it be, or whatever catches on within a culture.

Cultural attachment to color is deep set, enshrined in history and rife with meaning. For Mexicans, for example, there’s nothing more patriotic than the green, white and red of the country’s flag, symbolizing the national liberation army and Mexican independence from Spain.

A close second to the colors of the Mexican flag would surely be soccer team colors – also closely linked to patriotism. The red and black of Club Altas versus the red, white and blue of Chivas is a rivalry that means no Chivas fan is going to wear Atlas colors (at any time, not just as a jersey) and that no Atlas fan would wear Chivas colors.

These soccer colors have taken on new meaning based on the Mexican context in which they’re found. Red and black mean Atlas in certain situations and places. Black and red meaning steamy boudoir is something as a Canadian I’ve worked hard to leave behind!

Colors can also reflect a choice we’ve made.  They communicate to others what we want them to feel. If I choose red and black, it’s probably something fairly serious on my mind. Fashion magazines tout red as a power color to wear in job interviews, and red in flags often represents bloodshed. What are your power colors?

If I choose yellow, I might want to make myself or others feel happy, or to make others feel lighter – unless of course it’s waste management because then it means toxic waste and conveys a warning and certain degree of danger. I wouldn’t want the choice of yellow for my company to bring to mind the sick bay during quarantine of a ship on lockdown because of disease.

The key is in how each color makes us feel in different situations. For Mexicans, yellow can mean that someone is a scaredy-cat, unless we’re talking about a periódico amarillista where it means a tabloid that prints sensationalist pictures and stories.

In Canada, green means go, money, trees, initiatives that take the environment into consideration, but in Mexico, it can mean the rainy season, when an electric explosion of green growth covers the state of Jalisco. When paired with white and red, green also means patriotism to Mexicans, and even those big green peppers packed with flavor called chiles poblanos and the smaller chile serrano become patriotic. Green could mean health to you, or represent a poisonous snake or a vile sickness. If you’re riding on the cross-country course on the back of a green, young mount, it means he might be too inexperienced to know how to take the jumps.

Cultural context is everything in choosing colors to represent your idea or business.

What color signals innovation to you? Is it grey? Lime green? Fluorescent yellow?

What color do you think would signal “classic” to your clients? Black and white? Burgundy and beige? Pink and grey?

The language of color speaks volumes about how a culture processes information, and how it feels. Color is part of the equation that directs our feelings. It is an element that influences us strongly – red means the best flavor of candy, gummies and freezies to me, but it might mean danger to you. In China, India, Pakistan and Vietnam it’s the color of a wedding dress. And for Stanley Kubrick, apparently it meant alarm.

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