The Color of Happy

Coffee truck outside the Hermes exhibition

Design Week in Milan represents a wide variety of aesthetic directions, but all types of brands and exhibitors seem to have agreed on one color as their big color-crush this year: yellow!

We don’t think that’s completely coincidental. Yellow is the most noticeable of all colors to the human eye, and at a huge design festival, where everyone is competing for attention, choosing the most attention-grabbing of all colors seems like an obvious choice. (Though slightly futile when everyone is doing it 😅). However, we also think that there’s a deeper reason why so many brands were drawn to yellow this year. According to science, yellow promotes happiness and optimism in the observer more than any other color, and in the midst of war in Europe, worrying developments in global economics, and after years of pandemic, lockdowns and fear, we all feel a deep craving for optimism and happiness. Yellow provides a little bit of that feeling.

And yes, yellow is most certainly a happy color! And yes, it did feel like Milan was bathed in bright, warm sunlight wherever you went - indoor and out. However, when used too dramatically, yellow can also lead to visual fatigue. Due to the intensity of the color, high levels of exposure to yellow can lead to irritability and even anger; and after a week of seeing yellow everywhere, we were – to put it mildly - reminded to use yellow with caution 😳

So, our recommendation to you is this: by all means, use yellow for all the positive effects it has, but think about how you create a calm context around it, or use it for smaller elements and details. Add a splash of happy – just don’t overdo it.