Combining the colors pink and green will always give an effect of uneasiness as most people’s reaction would be thinking that combining these would be weird. Both colors have their own reputation and properties in their own chromatic realms that even placing these two colors next to each other would make these two repel each other like oil in water. The reason for this initial reaction is because they come from opposing families of colors. Pink is a soft tint of red, warm color, and yellow, orange, and brown. On the other hand, Green is a secondary color that hails from the clan of cool colors like blue, violet, and indigo. Placing these colors next to each other creates a visual arrest that is not pleasing to the eye. To arrive at such a solution, we must examine the effect of each of the colors. Pink is a subtle tint of red; it is made by combining red with white. The color has its own chromatic personality that is almost synthetic. Pink, however, is vibrant and warm. It is always associated with femininity and youthful love. Green is a secondary color made by mixing yellow and blue. Green is very abundant in nature; the pigment chlorophyll is a substance that gives many plants and animals color. It is associated with; life, nature, and safety. Combining these colors, the warm pink and the cool green, creates a neutral and achromatic color; Gray. Specifically, the color is Gray or Trolley Gray., with the hex triplet code: #808080, it is a grey shade.
What is Gray?
Gray is an achromatic color somewhere between white and black. Gray has varying shades and tints depending on the varying amounts of white or black on them. Many grey shades can also have small amounts of blue or yellow on them to create colder or warmer greys. Gray is considered the most neutral of all the colors and could be because it can be the basis of all the colors. Gray is a name to the color in the English language that can be traced back to AD 700. It came from the Anglo Saxon words grai or grei, which describe the color. The word gray is commonly used in American English, while the variant grey is generally used in the British Commonwealth and European countries.
Cultural Associations
In classical antiquity and throughout the Medieval period, grey is associated with the lower class and poverty, probably because the color of the undyed wool is gray. The English and Scottish monks and friars wear grey robes because they adopt an ascetic lifestyle of humility and poverty. In the Renaissance and Baroque periods, artists such as Rembrandt employ the color grey as a background color in some of their paintings to highlight the colors gold and skin tones. Renaissance artists use black pigments made of charcoal and mix with white to produce various shades of gray. The color can also highlight the face in their paintings. Gray was also used in some military uniforms in the 19th century, particularly the American Confederate Army during the Civil War. The resulting color became widely known as cadet grey. In the modern world, it became the symbol of industrialization and conformity.
Color Psychology
Gray has always been associated with neutrality and indefiniteness because its quality is in the middle of the chromatic scale. The color is used to saturate strong colors. According to the color theorist Johannes Itten, the color grey is used in the Renaissance period in the European churches by placing blue and orange mosaic tiles side-by-side in their church windows and, when bathed with sunlight, produces a beautiful and somber grey light. This attests that combining complementary colors such as orange and blue can produce grays. The color gray’s reputation for representing neutrality by combining opposites also persisted in color psychology and art. The color is also associated with wisdom and old age. As we grow older, the human hair slowly turns grey before transitioning into full white as we reach full maturity. This notion is also supported by the fact that the color grey is the color of ashes. It was mentioned in the Bible that we would all return to dust after death, so in Christian traditions, the color gray is associated with mourning. Ever since antiquity, grey has been associated with humility and poverty because of the monks and friars who choose grey as their robes’ color to vow for poverty. The Japanese and Korean Buddhist monks also wear grey in their robes to renounce themselves from the world of materialism and choose an ascetic lifestyle. It is now a symbol of modesty and asceticism throughout many usages.
Use of the Color
The color gray, as we learned, is an achromatic color that saturates strong colors. It is like a vampire that takes away the chromaticity and brightness in the colors surrounding them; thus, it is perfect to balance out an aggressive color and be used as a background to many vivid colors. In graphic design, it has been commonly used as a base in many posters and print materials. The color gray is best paired with the color orange, especially International Orange. The gray balances the color’s excitement and is perfect to use in your color palette, along with the color cobalt blue to portray strong corporate branding. A graphic design technique can be used by filling your canvas with a greyscale portrait and using orange in your typography or call of an action button is used in website design. The effect is aesthetically pleasing and can create a harmonious quality in your overall design output, whether it’s print or web. The color gray can never be boring when paired with orange, cobalt blue, or lemon green. In interior design, grey shades are commonly used in accent walls and furniture such as sofa and beds. You can utilize accent colors such as vivid orange, byzantine purple, or yellow-green in your throw pillows. These colors are best highlighted by grey fabric and can be used in modern interior spaces. In fashion, grey colors can also be paired with orange and cobalt blue accents. The effect is that the colors orange and blue are balanced by the color gray and create an overall eclectic and unique look.
