With so many to choose from, which colour is best?
2nd October 2024
Authored by Weirdsmiths
Believe it or not, the number of colours in the world is actually something that is heavily debated and mostly subjective, not knowing if everyone sees colour the same way. You can scroll through the internet, ask a scientists or optician, and you’d probably get a different answer from all of them.. but, despite this, there are some things that are universally agreed.
With the way our eyes work and the levels of light they let in, as well as their natural filters, it is estimated that we can see around 1,000 different levels of light/dark across 100 levels of red-green and yellow-blue equally. Calculating every possibility within that, we can probably see around 10 million individual colours – but, we are almost certain that there are more than that out there in the universe. We can’t see everything.
How many colours are there?
Technically speaking, there are 7 core colours in the world – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (ROYGBIV). These seven colours originally came about way back in 350BC, when Aristotle looked at some rainbows and starting asking questions as any philosopher would. He theorised and made some notes, but his ideas weren’t really expanded upon until around 400 years later during the Roman Empire, and then later, and perhaps more iconically, Isaac Newton.
The idea of the rainbow has been studied for millennia and different theories were floated, but the idea that light moving through water or vapour created this stream of colours has been consistent for a while. It wasn’t until Newton proved that white light was made up of a collection of colours using his glass prism that the phenomenon was finally understood. Though the science was behind him and the colours visible, even this is disputed as to how many colours Newton saw; potentially adding orange and indigo to help align the colours more softly.
While some definitions of the spectrum of light and rainbows may exclude indigo, the idea of the seven colours still remain to this day. Upon closer inspection to a rainbow, and with a greater understanding today, we can actually see that there are many more variations of colour within the colourful arch than even Newton perceived. 18 decillion to be precise.
Colours and humans
Now, despite there being many, many, many, colours in existence, it doesn’t really mean anything to us. As we stated above, our eyes can only see 10 million colours, so we’re missing out on a huge cacophony of variety that we just simply don’t know about. With that being said, 10 million is still a lot, and even within that we’re probably experiencing way more than we need to. When we describe things by colour, we often simplify them into a very short answer – like red, for example.
Depending on your occupation, skillset and even whether you care or not, you might dive into deeper descriptions or codes like HEX, RGB, CMYK or Pantones… but, again, most of this is useless unless you’re viewing things through a digital screen. With a capacity of displaying millions, and sometimes billions, of colours per pixel, the availability of colours is much higher than what our eyes can take in.
So, back to the question at hand; which colours is best?
Well, if you ask a computer, it would probably go with white or black. It requires little effort to display, it’s easily taken in by the end-user and they’re universal colours that everyone can see, even those with forms of colour blindness. To a human, however, the question is as subjective as how many colours there are, most people have a favourite colour, some people can even taste colour, and others can associate it with certain words, so it’s definitely a hard one to summarise.
But, it’s not impossible.
Dissecting the colours
For the purpose of this article, we’re going to focus on the 7 core colours.. We don’t want you to be reading for centuries through every variation of colour and, frankly, we don’t have the time – but, equally, these are the colours that appear most in our lives and are most relevant to us.
Red
Red is a colour that we are often drawn to for a variety of different reasons and features heavily in things that are man-made. It features as one of the earliest colours ever used by humans in cave paintings and prehistoric art, as well as holding a deep meaning in religion and war. Red is the most featured colour on national flags around the world and stands out amongst the greens of nature when it appears on flowers and fruits, so it’s definitely one that’s hard to miss.
Psychologically, red is as equally associated with passion, love and excitement, as it is with anger, fire and blood. It crosses both thresholds as a beautiful colour as well as a complicated one, with some people having a great desire and love for it, while others can’t stand it. How the colour is received often depends on the part of the world you live in, with many countries in Asia also associating red with happiness, money and good fortune.
Orange
Fitting to this time of year, orange is a colour that is dominant and desired during autumn. It is often associated with warmth and success, with little to no negative traits in kind. Many fruits and vegetables feature the colour orange due to the photosynthetic pigment carotene, converting light into chemical energy. In autumn, chlorophyll (the pigment that makes leaves green) is removed, resulting in carotene being dominant.
In the western world, orange is often associated with amusement and taste, especially when it comes to autumn and Halloween. In Asia, it is a symbolic colour of Buddhism and Hinduism, often featuring on religious clothing and markings.
Yellow
Though sometimes hard to see, yellow is the universal colour for joy, optimism and hope, heavily associated with sunlight and spring. Similarly to red, yellow was one of the first colours to feature in early humankind due to its availability within clay, later being developed into gold as a symbol of wealth and power amongst many empires.
Many traits of yellow are closely related to orange, given that the latter is a combination of red and yellow, but it does often possess negative qualities such as greed, jealousy and envy; likely due to its gold offspring. Despite appearing a lot in nature, yellow is a colour that has long been reserved for nobility or to single people out, leading it to not be recognised as the best of colours through human history.
Green
As one of the most found colours on our planet and the iconic symbol of nature, green is easily one of the most favoured colours amongst humans. It’s attributes to health, the environment, tranquillity and growth will often see it used in brand logos and campaigns, but in a variety of shades it is heavily involved in clothing too. While we probably don’t wear green for the same reason, many animals feature some level of green as part of their fur, skin or feathers as a way of camouflage, merging with the chlorophyll-filled leaves for most of the year.
Throughout time, while red and gold were often saved for nobility, green was seen as a symbol of wealth amongst merchants and bankers. You will find green featuring heavily in government and institutionalised buildings, as well as being deep-routed in the culture and history of many European nations.
Green
Even more so than green, blue is a colour that is heavily featured on our planet, with our oceans and skies brandishing it in different shades. It is the most favourited colour globally, closely followed by purple which, of course, contains blue, so it is definitely a contender for the best. Though not really a surprise, it is a colour associated with unity, trust and security, being the second most featured colour on nations flags (behind red) and is a symbol of Earth.
In humankind, blue has been an important colour for art and design, with many precious gems and metals appearing in a shade, as well as being a favoured synthetic and natural dye in the modern era – blue jeans anyone? With the way our eyes work, it is an easy colour to see and is the last of the three primary colours on this list.
Indigo
A hotly debated colour, indigo is arguably the closest colour to another of any on this list, including many shades of blue and purple. The word indigo is actually often associated with the dye, rather than the colour, throughout history, and it wasn’t really thought of as a core colour until Isaac Newton stated it as part of the rainbow.
Indigo has long been used as a blue dye for clothing and paint, having been used for thousands of years all the way back to 4000BC. Even with Newton’s prism theories, the colour indigo is still associated with the dye itself, as it had been imported to England before Newton’s discovery.
The colour shares many properties and traits with blue and purple, often crossing over depending on who you ask. More often than not, if indigo is seen, it is classified as blue.
Violet
A colour closely associated with, or even mistaken for, purple, violet derives its name from Viola flowers and, similarly to indigo, rose to fame with Newton’s discovery. In human history, it actually shares a lot of prowess with red, being associated with royalty, religion and power.
Sharing many properties with purple, violet expresses luxury, ambition and magic to those who favourite it, often being a strongly favourited colour by the women of the world. The large difference between violet and purple is that it is a spectral colour, whereas purple is a combination of red and blue, or sometimes even violet.
So, which is best?
Well, if you couldn’t already tell, it’s different for everyone. A favourite colour is in the eye of the beholder… literally… and it wouldn’t really be accurate to say that one is better than the other.
Despite this, we’re going to give some reasoning as to what we’re thinking. We think that the best colour should come down to one of the three primary options: red, green or blue. Given the connotations of red being associated with anger and love, it’s a subjective one that not everyone would agree with, so we’d rule this out.
Green is a naturally wonderful colour that features a lot in our world, but its associations with governance, wealth and institution make it a hard one to love too. It’s definitely up there for us, with it being one of our core lifebloods on Earth, but we think blue just slightly takes the edge. As a harmonious colour that is easy on the eyes, promotes unity and features so prominently on our globe that you couldn’t miss it if you tried, we think we agree with the majority of the worlds population when we say that blue is the best colour.
What do you think?
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