Why do colors exist in the first place? What biological and cultural functions do they serve? And what changes when we use this knowledge not only to explain our perceptions, but also to create a more humane environment?

These questions have been at the heart of my research for many years. They were the focus of a studio discussion for the series “Die eine Frage” on Deutschlandfunk Kultur, which lasted just under 30 minutes. The program aired on August 28, 2026, as part of “Studio 9.”

For me, the starting point is a fundamental shift in perspective: Color is not a property of things. It arises as a perception within us. Matter and electromagnetic energy form the external conditions—but the world of color only comes into being through the interaction of the eyes and the brain, the body, memory, and experience. That is why color is far more than mere aesthetic decoration. It is one of the oldest and most powerful media through which people distinguish, evaluate, remember, and shape their environment.

From an evolutionary perspective, color vision helped us identify food, assess dangers, evaluate habitats, and perceive social cues. Culturally, we have developed this biological ability into a highly complex communication system: colors structure spaces and objects, signify belonging, create identity, and convey meaning long before we consciously put them into words. This intersection of evolutionary biology, perceptual psychology, and design forms a core focus of my research.

Why, then, do we still live in a predominantly white environment?

A second focus of the discussion was the built environment. A very large proportion of today’s wall and ceiling surfaces are painted white or designed to be nearly achromatic. In doing so, we are forgoing a significant part of our perceptual capabilities precisely in the places where people spend a large part of their lives.

For me, humanistic environmental design therefore begins with people: How does a space support orientation, relaxation, concentration, communication, identification, and well-being? What color schemes suit the activities and needs of the people who live and work there?

Evidence-based color design does not mean making rooms as colorful as possible. It means using color so precisely that it can fulfill its biological, psychological, and social functions. Color thus transforms from a decorative addition into a design element that shapes the environment.

What do our favorite colors reveal about us?

The third set of topics moved directly from the environment to personality. Why does one person feel exceptionally comfortable with a deep ultramarine, while another prefers light turquoise tones or warm shades of orange and red?

Color preferences arise from the interplay of biological factors, individual experiences, and cultural influences. In my research, I also examine the relationships between color preferences and personality traits—based, among other things, on the Big Five model.

This opens up an exciting new perspective on design: What if we could choose our clothing, cosmetics, living spaces, and products based more on who we truly are and how we experience ourselves?

Colors can then help bring our personalities to the fore. Clothing and makeup wouldn’t have to follow ever-changing trends; instead, they could enhance our individuality. Living spaces could better reflect our personal needs. Products would be cherished for longer because their design isn’t just appealing in the short term but fits who we are over the long term.

For me, this also raises the issue of sustainability. We don’t need to replace things that truly suit us as quickly.

Can color design help us live more authentically?

Perhaps this is the most socially interesting implication: Color does more than just promote well-being. It plays a role in how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us.

We always design our appearance, our homes, our workplaces, and our products as a form of social communication. Color is one of the fastest forms of communication there is. Even before someone analyzes our style or understands our words, our appearance—as conveyed by color—has already made an impression.

A good color scheme, therefore, does not help create an artificial effect. At best, it does the opposite: it makes our personality, our needs, and our attitude authentically perceptible.

This is exactly where color psychology and design come together for me. If we better understand why colors exist, how they affect us, and what experiences we associate with them, we can design our environment more consciously—making it healthier, more personalized, more social, and more human.

The interview on Deutschlandfunk Kultur explores these three major topics: Why do colors exist? How can we use their effects to create a more humane environment? And what do our color preferences reveal about our personalities?

The program is just under 30 minutes long and can be listened to on Deutschlandfunk Kultur .

A few years ago, in a British nightclub, the same woman became three different people on three consecutive nights. The same dress, the same face, the same voice, the same laugh. Only one variable changed: her hair color. As a blonde, she was approached by sixty men. As a brunette, forty-two. As a redhead, eighteen.

You might think this is a ranking of attractiveness. But the interesting part of the experiment doesn’t begin until after that. The same photos were then rated—and, of all things, the brunette version came out on top: more attractive, more intelligent, more competent. The blonde version, on the other hand, was rated as more in need of support—as the one most likely to need someone. And it was precisely her who was approached most often.

The researchers believe this is the explanation: People who perceive someone as needing emotional support are less likely to expect rejection. It is not the person’s greater attractiveness that drives the man across the room, but rather his lower inhibition threshold. Hair color did not determine whom the men found more attractive. It determined whom they felt confident approaching.

So there’s a gap between what we think of a person and how we treat them. And that gap is just big enough to fit a color that the woman had no control over.

This is exactly where the misunderstanding begins—the one that has been poisoning the entire debate about hair color and personality for decades. It can be cleared up in a single sentence, and that sentence is so unremarkable that it’s constantly overlooked: A person’s natural hair color says nothing about their character. The hair color they choose, however, certainly does.

That’s not a play on words. That’s the whole difference.

One hundred milliseconds

Our perceptual system isn’t optimized for fairness, but for speed. Anyone who enters a room is categorized before they’ve even uttered a single sentence: In less than a tenth of a second, a judgment is made about their trustworthiness, competence, and likability. What’s troubling about this isn’t the speed. What’s troubling is what happens when you look a little closer. The judgment isn’t revised. It just becomes even more certain.

In that fraction of a second, the brain latches onto the most striking feature available at that moment. And for most people, that’s their hair. It’s the largest contiguous area of color on the body, it sits directly above the face, and it’s visible from thirty meters away. Evolution doesn’t offer a more convenient label.

Just how significant this is was demonstrated as early as 1989 in Ireland. Test subjects were shown the same woman with different hair colors and asked to assess her personality. As a redhead, she was considered significantly more spirited than when she was a blonde or a brunette. Same person, same face, different judgment.

What Judas Has to Do with Your Hairdresser

The meanings of colors are learned, not innate. And they change over time.

Over the centuries, we have imbued the color red with meaning: excitement, danger, passion, and betrayal. In medieval iconography, Judas is depicted with red hair. In the records of the witch hunts, it appears with striking regularity. This meaning still clings to the color today—and we then project it onto the person who happens to have it on their head.

That’s not an inference. It’s a transfer of meaning. We’re not reading the person. We’re reading our own cultural history, which just happens to have settled on her crown.

Then there’s context, and it’s more powerful than the cliché debate is willing to admit. Hair color never stands alone; it always interacts with skin tone, clothing, lighting, and the situation. The same blonde woman is judged differently in a job interview than on a date—this has been proven experimentally. Anyone who thinks they’re reading a person is, in reality, reading a situation. And they’re reading media images: The link between hair color and beauty ideals can be traced across four decades of magazine analysis, and it shifts with every decade.

One detail that’s almost always missing from this discussion: These stereotypes exist almost exclusively in places where hair color varies at all. Worldwide, about ninety percent of people have dark hair. The whole excited typology ranging from blond to red is therefore not a fundamental anthropological law, but rather a regional European phenomenon—arising from a quirk of pigment distribution.

Where It Stops Being Funny

You might think all of this is just small talk. But it isn’t.

Of the five hundred British CEOs surveyed, only five percent were blond—compared to a population share of about twenty-five percent. This is no longer just an anecdote; it’s a significant figure. Hair color stereotypes don’t end in conversation. They end up on resumes.

Each color carries its own cultural baggage. Blonde signals youth and brightness—and is therefore mistaken for naivety. Brown is considered the norm and is therefore mistaken for reliability. Black creates the greatest contrast with the face and thus conveys authority. Red is rare and therefore highly conspicuous—and conspicuousness is the raw material from which stereotypes are made. Gray, finally, is not a marker of character at all, but rather a marker of age: here, we are not evaluating the color itself, but rather a presumed stage of life.

And what about biology? It occasionally produces side effects that look like personality traits but aren’t. In a widely cited study, redheaded women required about nineteen percent more anesthetic to suppress pain responses. A wonderful finding for anyone who has always considered the “pain-sensitive redhead” a fact—except that this is physiology, not personality. And even here, the situation has become contradictory: Recent studies suggest that the genetic variants responsible for these differences in pain sensitivity are different from those that cause red hair.

The Visual Diary

Now for the other half of the story—the part that almost never comes up in public debate.

One’s natural hair color is determined by pigment genetics. A chosen hair color is something categorically different: not a trait, but an action. And personality research is built on actions.

I have been empirically studying this correlation for years. To do so, I recorded the color palettes of people’s everyday clothing and compared them with Big Five personality tests. There is a significant correlation—but it’s not where almost everyone expects it to be.

Two findings surprised even me. The first: It’s not the primary colors that are meaningful, but the shades. Not “blue,” but which shade of blue. The second: Ironically, the favorite color—the one that everyone can name immediately and without hesitation—is the least revealing. It’s usually a projection of our desires—our self-image, not our true self. What matters are the colors we actually wear every day. They are the visual diary of our personality, and we keep it without even realizing it.

That’s exactly why I think this analogy applies to hair color. After all, hair color exists almost exclusively in shades. Ash blonde, copper, platinum, mahogany, caramel—these aren’t primary colors; they’re subtle shades. This places hair color precisely within the range where my data locates personality information.

One difference remains, and it’s an important one: Your wardrobe reflects hundreds of individual choices made over the years. Hair color provides just one. The underlying principle is the same, but the precision is lower. Anyone who draws a diagnosis from this has failed to understand what we’re talking about: it’s about statistical trends. They allow us to make a statement about a thousand people—not about the one sitting across from you.

On the Importance of Conventions

We design our personal style as a cohesive color scheme: clothing, makeup, glasses, phone case, car, apartment. Hair color fits seamlessly into this scheme. It’s not an exception; it’s just one element among many. And this scheme conveys our personality, whether we want it to or not.

There is international evidence that strangers draw accurate conclusions from this. Judgments about a person’s character based solely on full-body photos are surprisingly often accurate, and clothing style proves to be a genuinely valid cue—not a prejudice, but a source of information. Those who choose a visibly non-conforming appearance show, above all, higher scores in a single dimension: openness to experience. Incidentally, the same pattern is also found among people with tattoos.

The direction of the inference is crucial. It leads from the choice to the person—never from birth to the person. The redhead didn’t choose her hair; the color says nothing about her. The girl with pink hair did; it says something about her.

And here’s another point that’s often overlooked in practice: Diagnostically, it’s never the color itself that matters, but rather the deviation from the local norm. Pink was a statement in 1977. In today’s creative agencies, it’s the norm. When a striking color becomes the group norm, its symbolic meaning shifts from openness to conformity. The same color, the opposite message. If you want to interpret color, you must always first interpret the context in which it is used.

The self-fulfilling prophecy

There’s one final twist left, and it’s the most eerie one.

In a Czech study, redheaded women did indeed report more sexual activity than others. A triumph for the stereotype, one might think. However, statistical modeling showed that their own desire did not account for the difference. The effect was due to the behavior of their suitors.

Because we treat people based on their hair color, we often end up creating the very differences that we had previously projected onto them. The stereotype feeds on itself—and ultimately serves as proof of its own existence.

The Last Drawer

Hair color triggers such reliable judgments of character because our brains are not optimized for truth, but for speed. Hair color is immediately visible, easy to describe—and still largely free of social stigma. It is the last major category people are allowed to use in public without having to justify themselves.

The mistake here is not that we draw conclusions about people based on color. We do that all the time, and when it comes to chosen colors, we even do so with a remarkable degree of accuracy. The mistake is that we fail to distinguish between what someone wears and what they were born with.

Drawing conclusions about a person’s character based on their natural hair color is about as reliable as predicting the weather based on the color of a wall. Reading into a person’s choice of color, on the other hand, is not superstition, but rather the psychology of perception.

If you want to try it out for yourself, you don’t need a lab. Open your closet and don’t look at that favorite piece you wear three times a year—look instead at the four items that are constantly in the laundry. Those are your colors. The diary is lying open. You just never looked inside.

This essay was prompted by a request from the BILD editorial staff. The article that appeared there can be found here: How Your Hair Color Affects Other People – BILD

Studies and Sources

Original Research

Buether, A. (2025). The Big Book of Color Psychology: What Colors Reveal About Us and How We Can Use Them in Our Lives. Munich: Droemer Knaur. ISBN 978-3-426-44763-5. Includes a study on the relationship between everyday clothing colors and the Big Five personality dimensions, as well as the color-personality test developed based on this research.

Buether, A. (2020). The mysterious power of colors. Munich: Droemer Knaur.

International Studies

Beddow, J. N. (2011). Hair Color Stereotypes and Their Associated Perceptions in Relationships and the Workplace. Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research, 16(1).

Liem, E. B. et al. (2004). “Anesthetic Requirements Are Higher in Redheads.” Anesthesiology, 101(2), 279–283.

Naumann, L. P., Vazire, S., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2009). Personality Judgments Based on Physical Appearance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(12), 1661–1671.

Rich, M. K. & Cash, T. F. (1993). The American image of beauty: Media representations of hair color over four decades. Sex Roles, 29(1–2), 113–124.

Swami, V. & Barrett, S. (2011). British men’s hair color preferences: An assessment of courtship solicitation and stimulus ratings. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 52(6), 595–600.

Swami, V. et al. (2012). Personality Differences Between Tattooed and Non-Tattooed Individuals. Psychological Reports, 111(1), 97–106.

Takeda, M. B., Helms, M. M., & Romanova, N. (2006). Hair Color Stereotyping and CEO Selection in the United Kingdom. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 13(3), 85–99.

Tate, J. C. & Shelton, B. L. (2008). Personality correlates of tattooing and body piercing in a college sample. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(4), 281–285.

Weir, S. & Fine-Davis, M. (1989). “Dumb blonde” and “temperamental redhead”: The effect of hair color on certain personality traits attributed to women. The Irish Journal of Psychology, 10(1), 11–19.

Willis, J. & Todorov, A. (2006). First impressions: Forming an opinion after a 100-ms exposure to a face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592–598.

Hardly any other color touches people as directly as blue. On a summer day, we look up at the sky and feel a sense of vastness. We stand by the sea and feel freedom, freshness, or a sense of longing. We wear dark blue when we want to appear trustworthy, choose turquoise for spaces designed to promote relaxation, or ultramarine for products and works of art that radiate depth and uniqueness.

But is the sky really blue? Does the sea have a color that exists in the world independently of us?

No. Color is not a physical property of the sky, the sea, or an object. It arises only in our perception—through the interaction of our eyes, brain, body, memory, and experience.

This insight forms the starting point for a fundamental shift in perspective, which I call the “Color Turn ”: We no longer explain color primarily in terms of the physical conditions of the environment, but rather in terms of human experience.

Where is color if it isn’t in things?

Outside the perceiving human being, there is matter and electromagnetic energy. It is only our visual system that uses these to create brightness, contrast, spatial depth, and color. Sky blue, aquamarine, cobalt, and ultramarine do not arise outside of us, but rather in our minds.

The same is true of music. Outside the listener, there are vibrations and changes in pressure. They only become a melody within our experience. Language, too, does not exist in the air as a finished meaning. It arises in the conscious mind that understands it.

If the sensory organs or brain functions necessary for this are damaged, the corresponding experience disappears. Then, for that person, there is no longer any color, sound, or intelligible language.

However, that does not mean that color is merely imaginary or unreal. On the contrary: the perceived world is the primary reality of our lives.

When a person feels afraid of a dark basement room, that fear is physically and psychologically real—even if the basement is objectively harmless. Just as real is the sense of openness, confidence, and drive that a blue summer sky can evoke in us.

We do not first perceive the world neutrally and then evaluate it. From the very beginning, perception is linked to physical states, feelings, memories, and our readiness to act.

How does a blue summer sky affect our bodies?

A blue sky is much more than just a colored expanse. It evokes a sense of vastness, warmth, fresh air, good weather, and the prospect of activity, encounters, and adventures.

Our bodies adjust to activity and the outside world. We become more alert and attentive. We perk up and want to go out, travel, swim, meet friends, or start something new.

This also alters vegetative and hormonal processes. Serotonergic systems are involved in mood, well-being, and confidence, while dopaminergic systems are involved in motivation, anticipation, and drive. Circulation, respiration, muscle tone, metabolism, and readiness for movement adapt to the current state of mind.

However, it would be too simplistic to attribute these reactions solely to the abstract color blue. The blue summer sky is a multisensory experience. It encompasses temperature, air, sounds, smells, physical activity, and social experiences. The color, however, is its most powerful visual symbol. It encapsulates summer, freedom, vacation, water, movement, and well-being into a sense of life that can be experienced directly.

Why don’t we just see blue—why do we feel it throughout our whole body?

In his theory of somatic markers, neuroscientist and neurologist Antonio Damasio describes how experiences are linked to emotions, physical states, and tendencies to act.

We don’t just store a summer day as abstract information. We don’t merely remember that the sky was blue and the air was warm. Physical sensations are also tied to the experience: the warmth on our skin, the feeling of breathing freely, movement, lightness, encounters, or the joy of anticipation.

If we encounter a similar shade of sky blue later on, this entire pattern of experience can be triggered again. We don’t just see a color then. To some extent, we slip back into the state we associate with it.

This explains why a particular shade of blue can change our mood, our attitude toward a situation, and our willingness to act within a matter of moments.

Color, then, does not simply represent the world. It plays a role in how this world takes shape within us.

Why do the sky and the sea appear blue, even though air and water are transparent?

Up close, air and water usually appear transparent to us. But when viewed as a whole, the sky, streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans become the most expansive blue spaces in our environment.

We perceive the sky as a colorful experience due to the interaction of electromagnetic energy with the Earth’s atmosphere and our sensory system. In the case of water, depth, the substrate, suspended particles, reflections, and spectral absorption all affect the perceived color.

The blue we experience is never the same. It changes depending on the time of day, the season, the weather, the geographical location, the direction of view, the depth of the water, and atmospheric conditions.

A clear morning sky appears a different shade of blue than the dense atmosphere before a thunderstorm. A shallow tropical sea appears turquoise or aquamarine, while a northern ocean appears steel blue, gray-blue, or deep navy blue. In the distance, landscapes appear bluer and less contrasted due to the atmosphere.

That is why blue is not just a color category. It is a whole world of environmental and life experiences.

Does every shade of blue have the same effect?

No. The blanket statement “Blue calms” is just as inaccurate as the claim that “Red energizes.”

It is not the abstract category of color that has an effect, but rather the specific shade of blue with its particular brightness, saturation, materiality, surface area, lighting, and surroundings.

Sky blue can convey openness, lightness, and a sense of new beginnings.
Azure blue symbolizes summery clarity and optimism.
We associate aquamarine and turquoise blue with freshness, movement, and renewal.
Smoky blue and dove blue reduce the intensity of visual stimulation and can convey a sense of calm, security, and gentleness.
Cobalt blue has a striking, energetic, and mentally stimulating effect.
Navy blue symbolizes order, competence, and reliability.
Ultramarine evokes depth, longing, and emotional intensity.
Midnight blue evokes a sense of retreat, concentration, and mystery.

A light shade of cyan can have a fresh and invigorating effect. A muted gray-blue can be calming. A deep ultramarine can appear at once focused, solemn, and overwhelming.

Color names, too, are more than just linguistic labels. They evoke experiences of the sky, water, minerals, plants, textiles, times of day, and landscapes. A term like “aquamarine” conjures up a different mental image than “steel blue,” “ice blue,” or “night blue.”

Why is blue most people’s favorite color?

In international surveys, blue is cited as a favorite color more often than any other color. For this to be true, no more than fifty percent of all people need to choose blue. What matters is that, compared to any other single color, blue has the largest group of people who prefer it.

Why is that?

The Ecological Valence Theory offers an important explanation. According to this theory, we often prefer colors to the extent that we view the things and experiences associated with them positively.

Blue has an exceptionally positive connotation. It evokes clean air, good weather, fresh water, clear views, vastness, and safety. Many of these associations are formed as early as childhood and are later reinforced through experiences in nature, travel, images, clothing, spaces, and the media.

Blue is therefore the color that represents our best environmental conditions.

Of course, some people may associate blue with cold, loneliness, storms, drowning, or loss. Yet, when we consider our collective cultural and personal experiences, the positive associations outweigh the negative ones. That is precisely why blue is so widely accepted.

Why do banks, insurance companies, and technology firms use blue so often?

Because color originates in our psyche, it can be used as a means of communication. Brands work not only with surfaces, but also with perceptions, memories, expectations, and physical states.

Banks, insurance companies, technology firms, social media platforms, and political parties often use shades of blue because these colors are associated with competence, reliability, order, and trust.

However, this effect is not based on any fixed, inherent meaning of the color blue. It is reinforced by experience, repetition, and industry conventions. Because we have come to associate reputable institutions with dark and medium shades of blue over the years, we learn to associate this color palette with reliability and professionalism.

This also presents a problem: Blue can come across as familiar, but also as interchangeable. While using the same color as all your competitors reduces risk, it may also cause you to lose your distinctiveness.

Strategic color design, therefore, does not begin with the question of which color generally has a positive effect. What matters most is which specific shade suits a brand’s personality, its offerings, the market, and its target audience—and how it is consistently applied across all touchpoints.

Can a slight change in the shade of blue be worth millions?

A well-known example from the field of digital design illustrates just how significant even the slightest color differences can be from a business perspective.

Google tested various shades of blue for its ad links. A slightly different shade was clicked on more often. A Google manager later estimated the resulting additional annual revenue at around $200 million.

Regardless of how accurately this figure can be verified in retrospect, the example illustrates a crucial connection: subtle differences in color influence attention and behavior without users having to consciously identify these differences.

In product design, blue can take on a completely different role. A deep ultramarine can convey exclusivity, material depth, and desirability. The Swiss watchmaker Rado, for example, incorporated an ultramarine shade from Le Corbusier’s *Polychromie Architecturale* into a limited-edition watch.

Here, blue is not meant to subtly guide the user to click. Instead, it becomes the central feature of the product itself, evoking a sense of quality, emotional depth, and appeal to collectors.

Color can draw attention, build trust, influence how we perceive value, and trigger impulse purchases—often long before we consciously think about it.

Can color make people healthier at work?

Spaces aren’t just seen. They are experienced with the whole body.

Color can create a sense of closeness or distance, increase or decrease the intensity of a stimulus, aid in orientation, provide a sense of retreat, and fundamentally change the atmosphere of a place.

Subdued shades of turquoise and blue can convey a sense of freshness, calm, and distance from the hustle and bustle of work in break and relaxation rooms. When combined with warm earth tones, wood, textile surfaces, and a cozy atmosphere, a deliberate shift takes place: from clinical tension to a sense of safety, relaxation, and renewed energy.

In an intensive care unit at Helios University Hospital in Wuppertal that Gabriele Wöbker and I studied, staff absenteeism due to illness decreased significantly within a year following an evidence-based redesign that incorporated color, lighting, materials, and spatial function. At the same time, satisfaction with the break room, perceived relaxation, job satisfaction, and identification with the work environment all improved.

Color alone was not the cause of these changes. The overall atmosphere was the decisive factor. However, color played a central role because it links perception, memory, physical state, and spatial meaning.

Spectra, reflectance, and material properties can be measured. However, what really matters in people’s everyday lives is whether a space conveys a sense of safety, tranquility, belonging, spaciousness, or activity.

Can color evoke a response even when we don’t recognize a subject?

Art discovered the psychological autonomy of color long before modern neuroscience did.

The Blue Rider, Expressionism, and later Color Field painting increasingly detached color from the subject. Blue no longer had to represent the sky or the sea. It could become an emotional experience in its own right.

Kandinsky described blue as a color that draws people into its depths. With his intense ultramarine, Yves Klein sought to liberate color from the boundaries of the object. In color-field painting, large swaths of color become resonant spaces in which viewers experience a state of being rather than recognizing a specific motif.

Just how immediate this approach can be was demonstrated in a qualitative study that Leila Rudzki and I conducted in forensic psychiatry. Patients with severe impairments in perception and communication responded not only to representational landscape paintings but also to abstract color compositions developed from the atmospheric hues found in those landscapes.

Joy, laughter, excitement, rejection, or tears were evident even where no objects or landscapes were any longer recognizable.

The color didn’t have to represent anything to trigger a reaction.

Atmospheric color can thus provide a nonverbal window into feelings, preferences, and inner states. Often, the body reacts even before the mind has found an explanation.

So what is the true power of the color blue?

Blue fascinates us not because it has a single, universal effect. Its power lies in the extraordinary variety of experiences we associate with it.

Blue can open up and draw people in, energize and soothe, build trust, and stir a sense of longing. It can convey technical precision, social closeness, natural freshness, intellectual depth, or luxurious exclusivity.

Its effect changes with every shade, every material, every space, every culture, and every personal story.

The most important shift in perspective is therefore:

Color is not a property of the world, but rather a way in which we experience the world.

Because color arises in perception, imagination, memory, and design, it can alter our psychological and physical reality. That is precisely why it is one of humanity’s most powerful tools for communication and design.

Color does not simply represent the world. It plays a decisive role in shaping how we experience it.

You can find more of my coverage on this topic in the following media outlets:

Tagesspiegel: “Color Psychology: Sky and Sea: Why the Color Blue Makes Us Happy,”

WELT: “Psychology: Why the Color Blue Has a Special Effect on Our Brains“

Deutschlandfunk: “Psychology: People with anxiety disorders are more likely to have gray as their favorite color“

ntv: “Panorama: Sky and Sea—Why the Color Blue Makes Us Happy“

FOKUS online: “Peace, freedom, trust. A shade of blue explains why we long for the sea “

Ruhr Nachrichten, Dortmunder Zeitung Süd (DE) + Radio Ennepe Ruhr: “Sky and Sea: Why the Color Blue Makes Us Happy“

Radio Wuppertal: “Sky and Sea: Why the Color Blue Makes Us Happy“

Why Enjoyment Begins with the Eyes

Even before we bring a glass of rosé to our lips, our brain has already begun to savor it. Light filters through the wine, its hue shifting between delicate salmon, cool pink, and brilliant ruby—and instantly, expectations arise: of freshness and fruitiness, of mineral clarity, summery lightness, or a warmer, fuller-bodied sweetness.

In the current special issue of Falstaff Magazine, titled “Drink Pink,” I explore the fascinating question of why rosé is so much more than just a color—and why the enjoyment of a wine begins long before the first sip.

The brain gets its share first

Colors are not merely properties of objects. They function as sensory signals that link perception, memory, and physical reactions. Through our lifelong experiences, close associations have formed in our memory between certain shades of color and the corresponding smells and tastes.

The mere sight of a rosé wine can therefore already trigger the processes that prepare the body for enjoyment. Salivation, stomach activity, attention, and emotional anticipation all change, even though the wine has not yet been tasted. The eye provides the brain with an initial prediction of what the tongue and nose might experience shortly.

A pale, cool-looking rosé suggests mineral freshness, dryness, and elegance. A more robust, warmer hue tends to suggest ripe fruit, sweetness, and fullness. These expectations are not without consequence: they shape how we perceive and evaluate the actual taste.

Color, aroma, and taste come together to create a shared experience

Our senses do not operate independently of one another. What we see influences what we smell and taste. Color can enhance flavors, make certain scents seem more likely, and even alter our perception of sweetness, fruitiness, or spiciness.

It is precisely the pink hue of rosé that evokes a rich sensory memory: strawberries and raspberries, peaches, rhubarb, rose petals, or fresh citrus zest. Such associations are not retroactive linguistic attributions. They arise directly in the moment of perception—quickly, physically, and largely unconsciously.

That is why pleasure is never limited to the palate. It arises from the interplay of color, light, aroma, taste, memory, and context.

From Soft Pink to a Cultural Statement

Added to this is the cultural significance of the color. Pink has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent decades. Once a shade long associated with delicacy, femininity, or childishness, it has become a symbol of an urban lifestyle: self-assured, aesthetically sophisticated, pleasure-oriented, and lighthearted, without appearing frivolous.

Rosé is therefore more than just a wine. It creates a certain atmosphere and conveys a certain attitude. Anyone who chooses, opens, or serves rosé is simultaneously communicating ideas of hospitality, a zest for life, and refined enjoyment.

Color speaks before a word is even uttered.

When the Eye Keeps Its Promise

The rosé experience is a prime example of just how profoundly color shapes our perception. The enjoyment begins with the sight of the glass, continues through memory and anticipation within the body, and is finally fulfilled in the moment when what the color foreshadowed is confirmed by the aroma and taste.

Perhaps that is precisely what makes rosé so fascinating: its color holds the promise—and a good wine delivers on it.

You can read my full essay , “Rosé Is a Promise—Why Our Brains Start Drinking the Moment We See the Glass,” in the current special issue of Falstaff , “Drink Pink.”

With the advent of classical modernism, a design culture emerged that viewed color primarily as a formal means of expression. The Bauhaus, De Stijl, and the color theories of Kandinsky and Albers shaped generations of architects. However, the scientific foundations upon which these concepts were built have changed fundamentally.

In a recent interview with *Bauwelt*, Prof. Dr. Axel Buether explains why color design today must undergo a shift in perspective: away from a predominantly formal-aesthetic approach and toward evidence-based design that focuses on people and their biological needs.

From Form to Effect

Traditional design theory is primarily concerned with how colors, shapes, and compositions relate to one another. Evidence-based color psychology asks a different question:

How do colors affect people?

Neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and perceptual psychology show that colors are far more than just visual properties of surfaces. They influence orientation, attention, emotions, stress regulation, motivation, and social interaction. As a result, design becomes not only an aesthetic task but also a biological and psychological one.

Architecture Needs a Scientific Shift in Perspective

While medicine, psychology, and ergonomics have consistently been guided by empirical research in recent decades, the field of color design is still largely based on historical design theories whose scientific foundations are now outdated.

Evidence-based color psychology views this shift not as a rejection of design tradition, but as its further development. Design thus gains a new scientific foundation that aligns with current findings on perception, behavior, and health.

Design begins with people’s needs

Therefore, the starting point for a design is not the question of an attractive color scheme, but rather the people who will use the space.

What activities take place here? What kind of atmosphere supports them? Should a space be calming, energizing, provide orientation, or encourage communication?

Only once these questions have been answered can color concepts be developed that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also have an impact in everyday life.

Atmospheres Can Be Planned

Colors never have an effect on their own. It is only through their interaction with light, materials, surfaces, and usage that atmospheres are created that convey a sense of security, promote concentration, or support relaxation.

The goal of evidence-based color psychology is to scientifically understand these effects and apply them to architecture, healthcare facilities, educational spaces, work environments, products, and brands.

The future of design is people-centered

The interview ends with a thought that sums up this shift in perspective:

“Clothing is the first space we design. Next come our home, our workplace, and the city.”

Anyone who wants to understand color should therefore look not only at facades and floor plans, but also at the people for whom design is created in the first place.

Link to the full interview in BAUWELT

An international study involving 593 Muslim women who wear headscarves from Germany and Turkey yields surprising insights into color, personality, and religiosity

Wuppertal/Berlin, 2026 – What color does a devout Muslim woman wear, and why? In Western social and political debates, the headscarf is often subject to extreme stereotyping and discussed as a symbol of oppression, patriarchal homogenization, or mere conformity. A new groundbreaking study by the University of Wuppertal and the Berlin Institute for Islamic Theology (Humboldt University of Berlin) now empirically challenges these clichés and shows that the choice of color among Muslim women who wear headscarves is not primarily determined by religious precepts. Rather, women consciously use colors to express their personalities, manage their social impact, and adapt their visibility to different everyday situations.

For the study *Colors of Faith*, 593 Muslim women who wear headscarves from Germany and Turkey were surveyed. For the first time, the study systematically examined how personality, religiosity, and social context influence the choice of headscarf color.

The study reveals a finding with explosive sociopolitical implications that directly contradicts common preconceptions: An overwhelming 97 percent of the women surveyed cited only their personal taste as the most important factor influencing their choice of color. Family, religious authorities, social media, and societal expectations, on the other hand, play a completely minor role in everyday life. The key finding: While religious norms do limit one’s freedom of action, they by no means erase individual personality or women’s self-determination.

“We were able to show that personality remains visible even when religious expectations and social norms influence color choices,” says color psychologist Prof. Dr. Axel Buether of the University of Wuppertal. “Colors are not merely decorative details. They are a tool for visual self-expression.”

One finding regarding religiosity is particularly surprising: It is not being white, but being Black that shows the strongest correlation with a pronounced orientation toward taqwa. This central guiding concept of Islamic practice does not describe a rigid dogma, but rather a comprehensive attitude of inner mindfulness, moral integrity, and ethical self-cultivation in everyday life. While white is often associated with purity and spirituality, black apparently stands more strongly in everyday practice for modesty, seriousness, and a consciously reduced visibility.

At the same time, the data contradicts a widespread stereotype: 97 percent of the women surveyed cite their personal taste as the most important factor influencing their choice of color. Family, religious authorities, social media, and societal expectations play a significantly smaller role.

An international comparison also yields remarkable results. Although the formal expression of basic religious orientation among women in Germany and Turkey is at a comparable level, the way this faith is embedded in their everyday lives differs considerably. Women employ entirely different visual strategies within their respective social contexts. While Muslim women who wear headscarves in Germany more frequently use color choices as a means of expressing individuality and openness within the context of a pluralistic society, everyday practice in Turkey is more strongly shaped by traditional patterns of modesty and the visual principle of “not standing out.”

For religious education specialist and theologian Prof. Dr. Tuba Işık, the study thus sends a clear message to the public: “Our data show unequivocally: Muslim women are diverse—one simply has to be willing to recognize this diversity. In light of these findings, generalizations that reduce the headscarf to a homogeneous, one-dimensional symbol are finally a thing of the past.” In practice, the headscarf proves to be a highly complex, multidimensional system of identity. “Faith is actively and aesthetically shaped by these women. The choice of color is not an act of blind conformity, but an internally rooted, independently reflected practice through which women subtly harmonize their spiritual focus, their personal identity, and the demands of everyday life,” Işık continued.

For the first time, this study combines evidence-based color psychology, personality research, and practical Islamic theology within a single research design. The researchers view this as the beginning of a new interdisciplinary field of research: the empirical study of visual self-communication in the context of personality, religiosity, and social context.

Key Findings at a Glance

• Personality remains visible in the choice of colors, even within the framework of religious norms.
• In all areas of life examined, an openness to new experiences correlates with a more expressive use of color.
• Women systematically adapt their choice of colors to different social situations.
• Black—not white—is the color most strongly associated with taqwa in the study, based on empirical evidence.
• 97% cite their own taste as the most important factor influencing their choice of color.
• Despite comparable levels of religiosity, Germany and Turkey differ significantly in their practices regarding color.
• Color choice serves as a form of visual self-expression that reflects one’s personality, religiosity, and social context.

Scientific Information

To download the study: Colors of Faith – Clothing Colors, Personality, and Religiosity Among Muslim Women Who Wear Headscarves in Germany and Turkey

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20824510

Download English version Colors of Faith

Press Release from the University of Wuppertal

Authors:

Prof. Dr. Tuba Işık

Islamic Religious Education and Practical Theology | Humboldt University of Berlin

Berlin Institute for Islamic Theology

Prof. Dr. Axel Buether

Institute for Evidence-Based Color Psychology | University of Wuppertal

When national teams present new jerseys, the talk is usually about design. About patterns, cuts or sales figures. However, the colors often tell the more exciting story. Because colors speak a language that is older than words. They touch feelings before we begin to explain them.

The new away kit of the German national soccer team is a remarkable example of this. At first glance, the color looks familiar. Blue, after all. But if you take a closer look, you realize that it’s not just any blue. It is neither the bright blue of a summer’s day nor the radiant azure of southern coasts. Nor is it the self-confident royal blue that seeks attention and demonstrates strength.

Germany wears navy blue.

That sounds like a nuance at first. In terms of color psychology, however, it is a difference of considerable importance. Sky blue lets you breathe. It opens up the view and conveys expansiveness. Azure blue has a light, optimistic and carefree effect. Royal blue conveys dignity and self-confidence.

Navy blue, on the other hand, is reminiscent of uniforms, jackets, universities, traditional clubs and state institutions. The darker and more muted a blue becomes, the more its psychological effect shifts from freedom to order, from openness to stability, from lightness to commitment.

Navy blue does not promise a new beginning. Navy blue preserves trust.

That’s why the historical reference of the jersey is so interesting. Adidas explicitly refers to blue training tops from earlier decades and to the year 1954, which is not just any old year for German soccer. In 1954, Germany surprisingly won the World Cup. The “Miracle of Bern” became one of the defining myths of the young Federal Republic.

The success meant far more than just a sporting title. In a country that had been in ruins just a few years previously, there was suddenly a feeling of being able to achieve something again. Germany was once again recognized, respected and taken seriously. The economic miracle and the World Cup merged into a single narrative in the collective memory: we’re coming back.

It is precisely this narrative that resonates in the navy blue of the new jersey. Not as a historical fact, but as a feeling.

Colors do not transport the past itself. They transport our idea of it.

This makes the new jersey remarkably different from its predecessor. The pink away jersey for the European Championship was one of the most discussed jerseys in German soccer history. For some, it symbolized openness, diversity and a new understanding of masculinity. For others, it seemed like a provocation or a break with tradition.

Irrespective of this debate, Rosa embodied something future-oriented. It played with expectations. It irritated. It experimented.

Navy blue does the opposite. It does not seek irritation, but familiarity. It does not invite experimentation, but remembrance. It signals continuity instead of change. This is precisely where its true expressiveness lies.

Interestingly, this is by no means the only conceivable direction. Many national teams today tell their identity through cultural diversity, regional characteristics, progressive patterns or unusual color combinations. They present their nation as something evolving, open and multi-layered.

Germany, on the other hand, opts for a color that refers to something already familiar. That is a difference.

Psychology knows a phenomenon that can explain this development: Nostalgia becomes particularly important when the present and future seem uncertain. It helps people to feel stability when familiar certainties begin to falter. It is less about historical accuracy and more about emotional orientation.

The past appears more orderly, successful and comprehensible than it actually was. Navy blue is an ideal color for remembering.

It combines trust with tradition, stability with seriousness and memory with hope. It is not an aggressive color. It is not a triumphant color. It is a color of quiet confidence. Perhaps that explains why this jersey seems so plausible right now.

It is published at a time when many people feel that the future has become more complicated. Economic uncertainties, geopolitical conflicts, technological upheavals and social polarization have weakened confidence in the grand narrative of progress.

Against this backdrop, navy blue does not appear to be a fashionable choice, but rather a cultural signal.

The new jersey does not look forwards, but backwards. Not out of backward-lookingness, but out of longing. It is reminiscent of a Germany that could tell itself as a story of advancement: recognized in the world, economically successful, full of confidence and convinced that the future would be better than the present.

Whether this past was actually as safe as it appears today is almost secondary. Nostalgia does not work with historical facts, but with emotional images.

This is precisely why this navy blue looks so contemporary.

It tells of a present that is no longer sure of its future and therefore searches in the past for a feeling that it has lost: the confidence that everything could turn out well again in the end.

A sneak peek ahead of the opening of the Anne Truitt exhibition at K20 Düsseldorf with color researcher and color psychologist Axel Buether, exclusively for young adults, March 27, 2026, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Anyone who engages with Anne Truitt’s sculptures encounters a richness of color that extends far beyond the appearance of a surface. Her colors take on a presence reminiscent of the sedimentary layers of lived experience. Each layer carries within it memory, perception, and mood. In the studio, this effect was achieved through the patient, repeated layering of pigment and binder until a harmony of color emerged that connects space, form, and atmosphere.

The expressive power of these works unfolds above all in the nuances of their colors. Saturation and opacity, warm and cool tones, and the relationship of one hue to its neighbor or to the surrounding light determine the emotional resonance of the work. A slightly muted pink can create a delicate, almost ethereal atmosphere. A blue modulated with gray evokes a quiet depth. A muted yellow carries warmth and memory without dominating the space. Much of the psychological impact of Truitt’s color palette lies in these subtle gradations.

This sensitivity to nuances of color reveals a clear affinity with American Color Field painting. Artists such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Ad Reinhardt developed a style of painting in which color serves as a vehicle for existential experience. Their large-scale pictorial spaces appear as atmospheric fields in which emotion, memory, and perception coalesce.

Anne Truitt consistently extends this line of thought into the space. Her vertical sculptures appear as upright fields of color that physically engage the viewer. The color forms both an atmospheric skin of the work and a field in which perception unfolds. The viewer moves around these chromatic harmonies, experiences transitions between nuances, and discovers subtle shifts in tone, saturation, and the play of light.

In this spatial presence, Truitt’s colors take on a special psychological quality. They appear like entries in a silent diary. Life stages, memories, and emotional experiences coalesce into tonal harmonies whose impact stems less from symbolic meaning than from the sensitive interplay of nuances. Color thus becomes a medium for self-affirmation and the expansion of artistic expression.

It is precisely this ability to make the subtlest differences in color perceptible that gives Anne Truitt’s work its lasting impact. Her sculptures invite us to experience color as a living space of experience: as atmospheric energy, as an echo of memory, and as a quiet force that deepens our perception and fills space with meaning.

Sneak Peek: Preview for young adults. Fri, Mar. 27, 4:00–5:30 p.m. Anne Truitt; for more information, visit the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen website

Color is both a phenomenon and a medium of visual perception and communication. As a phenomenon, it shapes the vivid experience of our being in the environment, while as a medium it refers to content-related meanings, emotional moods and functional contexts. As a light color it appears atmospherically dissolved to the viewer, as a body color it has a form-forming and materializing effect.

The antithesis of colored light is darkness, whose influence on the aesthetics and function of the world of appearances can be seen in the spatial play of shadows. The multi-layered sensations of color result from the interaction of light with the entire organism. Color and light are two sides of the same phenomenon, since color shines and light colors.

Color is the sensory basis for any form of vivid learning. Even shortly after birth, colors have a fascinating and interesting effect on all children, who explore the hidden learning potential with all their senses. Colors are our most important access to the world, as they allow us to perceive most of the characteristics and behaviors of people, things and spaces from a distance. We can see what something is, how it behaves and what we can do with it from the colored pixels of our perceptual images.

What we have already learned about the world of colors in our living environment is reflected in our memory in the form of associative structures. The nerve networks of our brain reflect the world of colors with their meanings and opportunities for action in every phase of life and thus contribute significantly to the formation of experience, the acquisition of knowledge and personality development.

The term education makes it clear that all forms of learning, such as language or action practices, are linked to the acquisition of meaningful images. In the colors of our environment, we only see what we have already experienced and learned.

Location: Situation Kunst (for Max Imdahl)

Nevelstr. 29 c
44795 Bochum-Weitmar

Lecture date:

Sunday, January 26, 2020, 11 a.m.

Link to the “Situation Kunst” art collection website

Link to the lecture announcement

As a young stonemason and stone sculptor, I spent a lot of time restoring church buildings a few decades ago. Every morning I was able to witness the creation of an atmospheric world of light and color in the interior of huge cathedrals, which disappeared again at dusk. It was clear to me that I had to discover the secret of these atmospheric spaces of light and color.

Over the past decades, my path has led me from the creative disciplines of architecture, design and art to the research field of perceptual psychology. To this day, I dedicate my life to color, whether as a professor of visual communication, chairman of the German Color Center or author of numerous publications and radio broadcasts.

We perceive colors with all our senses. Colors not only give our environment its shapes, surfaces and spatiality, they also convey messages and instructions that exert enormous power over our lives. Using our most important color as an example, we take a look at why and how we see colors. Using the color red as an example, they learn about the power that colors exert on our lives, what they mean for our everyday lives, health and well-being, and our culture.

Date and time Lecture: November 23, 7 p.m. as part of the thematic focus “A dream in red”

Venue:

MONREPOS, Archaeological Research Center and Museum for Human Behavioral Evolution Monrepos Castle56567 Neuwied

Link to the organizer’s website