My favorite color is blue. And, the odds are pretty good that your favorite color might also be blue. That’s because blue appears to be most people’s favorite color. Three separate studies (more on those below) have revealed blue or blue/green to be the most popular color for both men and women. But, why all this fuss about color? Well, it turns out that color’s impact isn’t limited to the personal sphere. As we’ve explained previously, According to a study examining the effect of color on sales, 92.6% of people surveyed by the CCI: Institute for Color Research said that color was the most important factor when purchasing products. Given color’s power overall, and blue’s undeniable popularity, it’s worth taking a deeper look into this shade. Major brands like Ford, American Express, Merrill Lynch, PayPal, AT&T, and Samsung have embraced blue as their featured brand color. And this is just a small sampling. A 2016 study conducted by Paul Herbert found blue to be the most popular shade used in web design. And research has shown that people associate blue with feelings like trust, reliability, and quality – all good things for any business. Over the past decade, over 220,000 designers on crowdspring have helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits, and agencies around the world with web, graphic, product, and packaging design. Here’s what we’ve learned along the way on how you can harness the power of blue for your business. First, the research… The Research It’s easy enough to make specious claims – especially about topics as potentially nebulous as color. But, we don’t roll like that. Call us crazy, but we like good old-fashioned research to back us up. Each of the following studies reveals information that will inform how you can best use the color blue in your small business design. Study 1 In 2003 Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociologist, conducted a casual study polling nearly 2000 people. Cohen’s question – “What’s your favorite color?” While Cohen acknowledged that his survey sample was not random (he asked the University of Maryland faculty, staff, and students), further analysis of his data suggested that the results were not dramatically skewed by the sample. In other words, his data was trustworthy. Ultimately, he found that 42% of men and 29% of women chose blue as their favorite color. Study 2 Paper merchant GF Smith and Hull 2017 UK City of Culture organized an online survey in 2017. The survey included 30,000 random participants hailing from 100 different countries. Each participant was invited to proactively select their favorite shade using a color slider. This technique allowed the participants far more specificity of shade than the other two studies mentioned here. The final results revealed a shade of blue/green to be the most popular color. This supports Philip Cohen’s data – which identified green as the second most popular color after blue. Study 3 In 2003, researcher Joe Hallock conducted a survey asking people to identify their favorite..
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