“Current Threat Level Orange “
According to the Department of Homeland Security “the United States government threat level remains at Orange – High Risk of Terrorist Attacks”. When did Orange become the color of High Risk Terror? It’s such a pleasing color, it cheers me up, my home is full of orange accents. Gatorade is the symbol of a Super Bowl win, it’s
Orange! I like Orange Juice and Oranges, Florida is the Sunshine State – they grow oranges there, I like Florida too. (I have many more Orange examples up my sleeve, but I’ll refrain.)
Outside of the clear assault on one of my favorite colors, which of course I’m taking personally, I’m actually wondering…. Will the constant use of the color orange as a link to the threat of terrorist attacks effect how we feel about the color and subsequently how we use it in our communication and products?
We’ve been on Orange alert for some time now. I can’t remember in fact when we weren’t. Are Consumers becoming immune to it? Or Not? Will We, Will Our Children, subconsciously walk (shy) away from products or advertising where orange is the dominant color. Will Hot Wheels have to change the color of their track?
Color questions for our times….
Thank you to photographer Ryan McVay for letting me use his Delicious Image of an orange; I’m going to have one now…
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January 30th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
I swore allegiance to Orange as my favorite color when only a child, and no stinking fear-mongering government administrations will sully the special place I have in my heart for it even today. Actually, I think being designated as the signifier of High Risk Terror is a great addition to Orange’s CV – it nicely accentuates the punk-rock edge initially secured via the Halloween coup that Orange pulled off with Black a while back.
There’s a couple of fantastic books by Alexander Theroux about the personalities of color – The Primary Colors: Three Essays was the first, followed by The Secondary Colors.