What does the color red mean?

By Catalogs Editorial Staff

Is the meaning of the color red universal?

When people communicate, they don’t only use words. They use symbols, body language, clothing style, song, artwork and yes an occasional rude hand gesture.

Whether you realize it or not, we also use color for communicating. For instance, purple is often used to represent royalty. Green is frequently used to express life and a respect for the environment. Black is often used to represent death, evil or something equally unpleasant. There is one color, however, that is arguably the most used and the most important of all colors in terms of communication. Red.

Using Red

If it’s so important then, what does the color red mean? Well, it depends. Red actually conveys different meanings not only from culture to culture or from era to era, but within our own culture and time. Many of these meanings though, come from one single source: blood.

Blood is the most important factor for determining what the color red means to us. Very often the color red represents danger. The most basic meaning behind this is that if you are in danger, you might bleed and you want to avoid things that make you bleed. Because of this, you see red used in things like stop signs and stop lights. It’s also the color of the red circle and slash that means no. For instance, a store that doesn’t want you to have food and drinks may have a red circle and slash in front of a graphic of a cup and burger that means No food or drinks. Although that’s a far cry from blood, the original reason for it is still the same. So red is used in order to warn people off.

Red Hot

Another meaning for red is hot and its counterpart for cold is blue. Just as with danger the original meaning behind this is blood. When a person is alive, blood that has been infused with oxygen pumps through his arteries. When blood is full of oxygen, it turns red. Although the red color of blood has nothing at all to do with temperature, they are associated because the other main thing that happens when blood is pumping through the veins is that it gets warm due to the friction of moving through the body.

The Passion Color