Colour Semiotics
Colors can evoke intense emotional reactions in audiences and can also express meanings and concepts through association. For example, in many western cultures, black is synonymous with death and mourning. Color can therefore play a role in the provision of knowledge, the development of a permanent identity and the indication of imagery and symbolic meaning.
colour semiotics is used because it is the meaning imparted by the sensation that an observer experiences when they look at a colour. For example, we analyze the influence of a reddish color that is generally called warm; does it make the observer feel warm or does it convey warmth? Perhaps, in this situation, there is both an emotional influence and a symbolic sense. But if we consider colours that may be thought of as masculine; such a colour is unlikely to make the observer feel more male but rather may communicate or indicate maleness.(M. Mohammadzadeh Darrodi (2012))
The signifier is the actual material of the sign (for example the tangible material of blood that denotes the sign “red” and “blood”) while the signified refers to the conceptual meaning or meanings generated by a sign and its signifier. For example, blood as a signifier refers to the sign “red” and “blood”, which in turn could generate a host of signified including injury, murder, violence, danger.(M. Mohammadzadeh Darrodi (2012))
Different origins for colour semiotics
There seem to be at least three distinct sources, these being innate (e.g. we may be born with a pre conceived notion to make certain colour associations such as the link between red and danger), socio-economic (e.g. the representation of purple with royalty and luxury in some cultures is undoubtedly related to the fact that purple colors can only be afforded by the rich), socio-cultural (e.g. the use of red envelopes to give money to people in China has probably resulted in Chinese people associating red with good luck).
Colour as an indexical sign
Indexical signs bear a direct link to what the sign refers to (the referent). For example, an orange-colored drink would usually serve as an index of orange squash, and the use of some other color would give rise to disbelief in the minds of customers.
Colour as an iconic sign
Colours can generate resemblance to objects and thus serve as iconic referents to them, and the link lies in the colour’s connotation of the object. The colour red, for example, is an iconic representation of blood.
Colour as a symbol
symbol — a “word, hypothesis, or argument, which depends on a conventional or a habitual rule”. The symbol is called pragmatic, because both the sender and the recipient of the text are aware of the context and help understand and communicate. For example, Red in Indian-Hindu cultural traditions is the colour of marriage, fertility, heat, passion and energy.
Hence, Sign as Saussure says it on its isolation is meaningless. In context with colours, on its own colours make little difference but its interaction with other colours (as a sign system) make some meaning out of it in relation to the other colours (have a more definitive meaning). Also, the meaning of a colour changes when the background changes, that mean the sign’s signified changes with context to the inter relationship of the sign. The sign system is the colour wheel, which becomes a langue which has inter related signs. And when we pick up an instance say muted colours, which become a parole.
References
Maryam Mohammadzadeh Darrodi (2012). Models of Colour Semiotics. [online] Available at: http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4150/1/Models_of_colour_semiotics.pdf.
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