Artful Advice

The Psychology of Colorful Stationery

How will the hue of your notebook affect how you feel?

The Psychology of Colorful Stationery

If you find yourself eager to turn over a new leaf in your life or are looking to be more organised, then refreshing your desk with new stationery is a good place to start. It will help you plan your days, tick off your work to-dos and keep those well-intended goals and resolutions. We would always tend towards having a carnival of color-popping paper designs on our desks. More than just lifting your mood, different colors can affect your emotions in different ways. So it's certainly something worth thinking about when choosing which notebook or planners you'll be looking at every day.

To help you decide, we’ve picked three of our favorite chunks of the color chart and explored their emotional associations.

ORANGE & YELLOW
These sun-like shades of stationery are positively radiating warm feels. Is there a cheerier color than yellow? If there is, we’ve not laid eyes on it, and we’ve seen a heck of a lot of colors. Whether it’s accompanied by a smiling sausage dog or not, a yellow notebook will have your face, and your desk, beaming. It’s traditionally associated with our two favorite words beginning with H: hopefulness and happiness. So basically, surrounding yourself with yellow is as good for you as popping a Vitamin D pill. (That one’s more personal hunch than scientific fact.) Orange is the color of confidence, so a bold notecard like the above design from Mother of Pearl will imbue your words with the self-assuredness of a side-hustling CEO/motivational speaker/burlesque performer/DJ and leave a lasting impression on any professional contacts lucky enough to receive your correspondence.

GREEN
When what you need is calm, green is here for you. It’s not too bright, it’s not too dark, it’s in the centre of the spectrum so it’s restful for the eyes. It’s the color of balance, so perfect for planning your days between work and everything else you've got going on in your life (and Romance Was Born’s Hallmark notebook can certainly help you with that). Its presence also conjures thoughts of the natural world (or is that the pretty palm frond illustrations?) referring to the idea of self-growth: the person you want to become lies behind these verdant covers. There’s no stronger color to represent a refreshing new start or the release of new life.

PINK & RED
Quelle joie! Pink and red signal good times ahead. And this is never more true than when it comes to your paper choices. Whether blush or hot, a flush of pink notecards on your desk can energize your imagination and creativity. It’s a shade that represents a vibrant, adventurous spirit. Pick up this Ludo notebook and you won’t be able to stop yourself from sketching still lifes, scribbling short stories or sculpting your your dream list of life skills to learn. Of course, red is also the color of romance – worth keeping in mind when penning love notes to your sweetheart. If you’re in the market for bold gestures of passion with which to woo your Valentine, this colorblock pink and red notebook is enough to get even the most cold-blooded of notetakers’ pulse racing.

There are many meanings and suggested emotions wrapped up in colors but usually our reaction to them comes down to our personal experiences: the sun-bleached pink bonnet of our parents’ old Astra, the severe purple trim of our school blazer, the blur of faded blue ink we scrawled on our Pepsi pencil case, making us sigh with pleasure or turn and run when we witness those shades and hues in later life. Thankfully, we’ve got a whole spectrum of stationery that’s sure to give you all the feels.


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