Package Design: Colour Harmony and Consumer Expectations

IntroductionBackgroundColour plays an important role in design. It is a trigger to arouse viewers' emotions and a carrier that designers use to deliver information. Colours that are viewed together and produce pleasing affective responses are considered to be in harmony (Burchett, 2002). In product design, it has been suggested that positive emotion would not only add extra value to a product but can further increase the possibility of a product being purchased (Cho & Lee, 2005; Desmet, Overbeeke, & Tax, 2001; Jordan, 1998). Therefore, when designing products, designers endeavour to establish emotional connections among ideas, products, services and brands (Crossley, 2003). Using harmonic colours is one way to create positive emotional connections. Most of the extant colour harmony principles found in art or design textbooks are based on well-controlled, simple, uniform colours. How well these principles are applicable to contexts that are more representative of real design situations is largely unknown.The context within which colours are used also affects how colours are perceived. For instance, the colour brown may associate with natural and warm feelings when involving wooden materials in interior design. However, the same colour may associate with different feelings such as elegant and dignified when used for a coat. More examples can be seen in a recent study examining the affective responses for 2-dimensional coloured shapes and 3-dimensional objects (Lee, Luo, & Ou, 2009). Therefore, if we are to examine how the use of colours might associate with different psychological responses or encourage positive emotions with the goal of obtaining information useful for future applications in product design, a pre-selected context (e.g., wooden products or clothes) should be used consistently for all the colours examined.Research AimIn this study, fruit juice containers are used as the context to establish a practical method for studying the relationship between colour and psychological responses. Fruit juice is one of the most popular food products and its market grows almost every year. Despite the global recession in 2009, the juice market still increased by 2% globally. In 2010 the market growth went back to pre-recession rate at 5%. Euromonitor International, a leading company in strategy research for consumer market, projects that fruit/vegetable juices will maintain the strong growth (at least) until the year 2015. (http://www.just-drinks.com/analysis/focus-juices-and-nectar-outlook-to-2015_ id103542.aspx)With the context being set to fruit juice, some important issues often raised in practice are "Do the colours of the package design look harmonious?" and "How does the colour scheme of packages influence consumer expectations of the product?" The first issue is of concern because colour harmony represents opinions of aesthetics among colours. If positive aesthetic feelings of a product are perceived, the product is more likely to be further examined and potentially be purchased (Eckman, Damhorst, & Kadolph, 1990; Morganosky, 1984). The second issue is of concern because colours affect consumer expectations, which would influence initial desire to purchase and subsequent action to purchase (Hutchings, 2003). Studying colour harmony for package design and consumer expectations of the product will lead to a better understanding of these two issues.Colour HarmonyColour harmony, as Judd and Wyszecki (1975) suggested, can be defined as "two or more colours seen in neighbouring areas which produce a pleasing effect". Granville (1987) also defined colour harmony as "colour usage that pleases people". For many years, specialists have sought to understand which colour combinations produce pleasant feelings. Their studies can generally be categorised into two groups, including one group of studies based on the orderly arrangement of colours and the other group based on the interrelationship between colours (Ou & Luo, 2006). …