If I pick a colour to represent Spring, the colour would be Light Green because it reminds me of sprouting grass and trees [1]. But interestingly when asking some Japanese friends for a colour of Spring, they all choose Pink because it is the colour of the cherry blossom (桜咲き) [2].

This is a good example of how people from different countries would perceive different meanings on abstract concepts, such as the association between colour and season. However, when I tried to find related data and research on the Internet, there are not too much of them except from the fashion industry. Furthermore, the data is usually:

• Single sourced — a single fashion designer or company “forecasting” the trend of new colour for next Spring. It is not a general choice of many many people.
• Context dependent — in this case only for fashion, but not for general purpose.
• Country/culture specific — usually a preference from western world, but not many other countries.

I want to do a tiny research to find the answer of this question: What Colour Would You Choose to Associate with the Four Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. I want to gather the data from people all over the world and discover such patterns. My Hypothesis is that, despite of personal preference, people from different countries should have different general patterns related to their geographical location, weather, culture, custom, history, and so on. I hope that at the end of the research I will be able to publish the data, and allow designers of all sorts to use more suitable colour for specific target audiences.

Stay tuned to future posts with the tag “season colour“.

[2] photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerones/141357725/