Bright Orange

Orange is the color that is sitting somewhere between yellow and red on the color wheel. As the name itself suggest, bright orange is a bright, vivid shade of color orange. To create bright orange, you first need to make its base, orange, as it is a secondary color. To do that, you need to combine colors red and yellow. By adding slightly more yellow, you will achieve bright orange’s vivid shade. Colors that relate to bright orange are orange, red orange, red, burnt orange. The hex code for color bright orange is #FFA500.

The history of bright orange

Color orange is named after the appearance of ripe orange fruit. The first recorded use of orange as the specific description for a color was in 1502, when the fruit began to appear on English market stalls.

Color orange was used in ancient Egypt, as well as in the Middle Ages, during which it was used for the coloring of manuscripts. Artists in the ancient Egypt used an orange mineral pigment for tomb paintings. Color orange can also be traced back to Europe in the 15th century, only then it didn’t have its current name, but it was called a yellow-red color. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the robes of Pomona, the goddess of fruitful abundance, were sometimes depicted in orange.

Soon enough, the synthetic pigment chrome orange was invented, which helped artists with capturing the colors of natural light. Orange became an important color for impressionist painters thanks to the French painter Claude Monet. His famous painting ’Impression, Sunrise’, which depicts an orange sunrise over a misty blue ocean and cityscape, gave its name to the impressionist movement.

Later on, Vincent van Gogh, who used orange more often than any other painter in the post-impressionism movement, even created his own oranges with mixtures of yellow, ochre and red. During the 20th and 21st centuries, color orange has been associated with various things. Due to its vibrant shade, which makes orange a highly visible color, it has often been used for increasing the visibility of workers employed in dangerous locations.

Today, color bright orange is mostly associated with fire, energy, extroversion, especially in Europe and the US, while also being an important symbolic color of Buddhism and Hinduism in Asia.

The color psychology of bright orange

Orange is a zesty, lively color. It is also a controversial color because people either love it or hate it. It is regarded as the most rejected color on a color wheel. Bright orange, especially, can be too overwhelming. It evokes feelings of excitement, high energy, but also warmth. It promotes positivism and optimism.

Orange can foster motivation and drive during hard times, and can help people find solutions to their toughest problems. Because of its vibrant shade, it can even increase the competition levels; make people push their boundaries and step out of their comfort zone. It lowers a person’s inhibitions in the right way. It helps people to take control of their lives, become more confident, and take actions that will lead them to a better outcome.  

People who favor color orange are enthusiastic, extroverted, and they love attention. They are not very patient, but they deal well with life’s setbacks. People who like orange color are usually very social and open to new experiences. They look at life as an adventure and they tend to be on a constant move. Their positive attitude and general enthusiasm for life is what attracts other people to them. They sometimes radiate such magnetism that everyone wants to be a part of their social circle. And they like it. They are not afraid of risk-taking, on the contrary, they enjoy it. On the other hand, they can be very warm, especially to people close to them. Even though they can sometimes be self-indulgent, they always find time for people they care about.

Color orange has some negative traits as well. People who choose orange can also be superficial, self-indulgent, dependent. They sometimes express pessimistic approach to life, and are found unpredictable. It wouldn’t be a surprise if others found them insincere and over-bearing.

The use of bright orange

Bright orange is one of the most noticeable colors on the color palette, but it is not to everyone’s taste. It can be used with different colors, even though not all of them will combine well with bright orange. Some of the colors that pair well with it are white, cream, olive green. For a more striking look, you can choose purple, red, yellow.

Bright orange can be used in many ways, and by many industries, but it is mostly the best color  for capturing attention. Whether it is used in fashion, home design, web design, it guarantees conspicuousness. It should still be used with caution because it can create an undesired effect. While some people will love it, others might find it overwhelming and repulsive, and they will have a tendency to avoid it.

Information about Bright Orange / #FFA500

In a RGB color space (made from three colored lights for red, green, and blue), hex #ffa500 is made of 100% red, 64.7% green and 0% blue. In a CMYK color space (also known as process color, or four color, and used in color printing), hex #ffa500 is made of 0% cyan, 35% magenta, 100% yellow and 0% black. Bright Orange has a hue angle of 38.8 degrees, a saturation of 100% and a lightness of 50%.

Color conversion

The hexadecimal color #ffa500 has RGB values of R: 100, G: 64.7, B: 0 and CMYK values of C: 0, M: 0.35, Y: 1, K:0.