The relationship between colour harmony and colour emotions—using two‐colour combinations applied on 3D colour configuration

Abstract Both studies on colour emotion and colour harmony have been developed for many years. For designers, creating harmonious colour combinations that satisfy specific colour emotions has always been designers' pursuit. However, most of the studies used flat colour combinations and lacked the discussion of the influence of three‐dimensional (3D) colour configuration on colour emotions and harmony. This study used the two‐colour combinations applied to the 3D colour configuration to explore the relationship between colour emotions and colour harmony, intending to enhance designers' insights on the colour schemes. The multi‐dimensional scaling was used to obtain the perceptual map, giving an overview of the relationships among colour emotions, colour harmony, and colour scheme techniques. The results showed that the emotion scales of “warm–cool”, “soft–hard” and “heavy–light” are similar. The scales of “complex–simple”, “active–passive” and “warm–cool” can be used to predict colour harmony. The harmonious colour combinations come along with “simple”, “passive” and “warm” emotions.