What is the meaning, symbolism, and the psychology of the color yellow and how does it influence us? Is your favorite color yellow or do you drive a yellow car? If so, what does that say about your motivations and personality traits?

This article also looks into the common uses of the color yellow, how it affects branding decisions, the meaning of yellow gemstones, idioms or expressions, quotes, and listing some interesting facts.

Color Yellow Meaning & Symbolism

Yellow color meaning, symbolism, and hex codes.

When we see yellow, we think of summer, sunshine, flowers, vacation, fun, and generally pleasant thoughts and associations, see things that are yellow in nature. It’s a happy color with many positive associations.

Like red, yellow is an attention grabber and an attractive color. It is also an energetic color. Sports drinks often have yellow in their packaging, it’s used to gain attention, and also because it stimulates and promotes feelings of energy.

The color yellow is also connected to and encourages creativity, deep thinking and learning. Yellow is believed to stimulate the areas of the brain that are directly linked to logical and analytical thinking.

In some far east Asian countries, yellow is connected to courage. In China, it was the Emperor’s color during the time of Imperial China. In Egypt, yellow is associated with the deceased. In Polynesia, yellow has connections to divinity, and is considered a sacred color.

Yellow beach.

Wearing Yellow Meaning or Owning a Yellow Car

If someone was to wear yellow clothes or buy a yellow car, it could suggest that person has a naturally fun and playful personality. It could also suggest that they like to do things differently than other people. They don’t care so much about other people’s opinions or conforming to the norms of society.

They don’t like to be conventional and they place high value on being unique. Possibly an extroverted personality that has a strong desire for attention and being noticed, or perhaps just a desire to express themselves and to be unique.

Personality if Yellow is a Favorite Color

You are a creative person, you are often the one to come up with new ideas.

You often have a cheerful personality, the fun person to be around.

You make decisions quickly, often impulsively.

You often put on a happy face, even in bad and stressful times.

A perfectionist, which means you can be critical of yourself and others.

You sometimes think you are above other people, with a tendency to be arrogant.

You have a broad knowledge base, knowledge about many different subjects.

You tend to give in to instant gratification, spending money, drinking or eating junk without thinking about the consequences.

You have a lot of mental energy, a quick thinker and a good puzzle solver.

Yellow personality.

Positive Influences & Traits

Happiness

The color yellow is linked to feelings of holidays and vacation. It encourages us to think of the sun, beaches, fun, entertainment and relaxation.

Enthusiasm

It encourages energy and optimism. Yellow can improve morale and increase positive thinking.

Communication

Yellow promotes communication and openness. Communication often means the difference between success and failure.

Clarity of thought

Analytical and methodical, helps with decision making and clear thinking.

Creativity

There are studies that suggest a connection between the color yellow and creative thinking.

Negative Influences & Associations

Anxiety

The color yellow promotes energy and feelings of uncertainty. Combined, it leads to feelings of anxiety and nervousness.

Envy

Like green, yellow is also linked and associated with the emotions of jealousy and envy.

Cowardly

The color yellow has associations with cowardice, “Yellow Bellied”.

Business & Branding

Yellow can be used in branding simply because it gains attention. This also includes the safety aspect of bright attention-grabbing colors. However, some of its associations can be used to project certain messages. Companies that specialize in vacations and holidays often include yellow in their branding due to the associations of sun, sand and fun. Warm colors are also believed to have a stimulating response on our desire to eat; this offers another consideration for a brand choice.

Examples:

  • McDonalds
  • Ikea
  • Yellow Pages
  • CAT
  • NYC TAXI
  • Bic
  • On the Beach
  • DHL
  • Subway
  • Shell
  • IMDB

Meaning of Yellow Gemstones

Yellow Citrine Gemstone.

Some of the most common yellow gemstones are; the Citrine, Yellow Garnet, Yellow Jade and Yellow diamonds.

Citrine comes from the French word “citron”, which means lemon. The meaning of the Citrine stone is strongly associated with the sun, meaning warmth and life, also including the color yellow associations of happiness and generally uplifting and promoting positivity. The Citrine is commonly used and popular in Jewellery, it’s well suited because of the stones’ durability, they look good, and are relatively cheap.  

Common Uses

  • Safety equipment, signs and clothing.
  • Taxis and school buses are commonly yellow in the USA.
  • Construction vehicles, for example JCB Diggers.
  • Yellow cards are used in Soccer/Football when a player commits a semi serious foul.

Interesting Facts

The color yellow is a primary color on the subtractive (RYB) and (CMY) color models.

In light (RGB), yellow is created by adding green and red. The following page has more on what colors make yellow.

In the visible spectrum, yellow has a wavelength of around 580 nm.

The color yellow is the brightest of all the colors, it’s the brightest color that the human eye can see.

The word yellow comes from the old English word “geolu”.

In ancient China, during the time of the Tang dynasty, yellow was considered the color of the sun, and only Emperors could wear it.

It has been reported that during the time of the First World War, the color yellow was used as a type of therapy to treat conditions like depression.   

Color Phrases or Expressions

Yellow bellied Or Yellow Streak: Meaning to be cowardly or scared.

Yellow brick road: This means a path that leads to success.

Shades of Yellow

Shades of Yellow

More shades of yellow with HEX and RGB color codes.

Light Yellow – Linked to fun, joy, upbeat, energy, and clarity of mind.

Dark Yellow – Associated with poor health, jealousy, criticism, cynical, and unclean.

Yellow Quotes

How wonderful yellow is. Vincent Van Gogh.
Yellow light color quote.

14 Comments

    1. i’m guessing that the mustard color would be classified as a darker yellow. its my favorite too but i don’t think its true.

    2. Yes Mustard is considered a darker shade of the color yellow. Most of what is on this page would apply, but Mustard Yellow is less attention grabbing/seeking, more dignified, reserved and classy. It’s much more suitable for home and office decoration and even formal occasions.

      To choose it for home decoration or to wear it would show a desire for self expression, being unique with a strong focus on individuality while maintaining a dignified appearance. It would probably suggest a creative and open minded person.

      I will dedicate a new page to Mustard Yellow in the upcoming weeks, where I will go into it in more detail. Thanks for visiting.

  1. I love color yellow but mustard. However, I’m not a jealous or envious person. For what reason?
    A jealous or envious trait is generally a human nature which becomes destructive to some people.

  2. Well this just blew my mind so I hope I can return the gesture with a story I hope you find to be interesting, entertaining and uniquely informational. I would assume that someone who has done all this work on color traits, characteristics and personalities is very color oriented. So I think you’ll truly appreciate what I’m about to share with you. I promise, it’s gonna be a mind blower. Ok let me begin by saying my favorite color is indeed yellow and I fit almost every single description in the color yellow personality profile. I’m not a coward and I am not jealous or envyous … but … while I didn’t have to grow out of cowardess I did have to overcome the terrible characteristics associated with the green eyed monster of envy and jealousy. So with one exception this pegged me even more concisely than any numerology or astrological chart reading. lol. Ok … so what’s so unusual and mind blowing about that. I’m pretty sure I heard that thought bouncing around that obviously inquisitive mind? Well … just hang on there just a leeeetle bit longer and I’ll get to it. I’m a writer by nature and trade. I gotta try and make this as good a telling as I can.

    I found your site via google search when I asked Siri to define the color teal for me and she must have woken up with the cotton balls still in her ears. Because she kept saying which word “keel or kill.” I’ve threatened to keel and kill her in the past so I didn’t figure that would do any more good than it ever has. So … I typed in define teal and your site was the first in the results. Congrats! good job. I build websites as well on the WordPress platform and it was because of that work I found myself needing a technical definitiod for that color. I have bookmarked your site as one of my important website development resources and am sure I will find your work very beneficial for a long time to come. So again … great job. Keep it up. Now … let’s get to the main course and then the dessert. Whacha say? You ready?

    Ok … I’m more blind than a one eyed bat and have been all of my life. I have never seen a color. Not so much as a hugh a shade … no … I have some light perception knowledge but nothing really useful. So … how in the world could I have a favorite color and how could it be that the color which just happens to be my favorite so accurately defines me. In fact I researched out two other colors besides teal. Pink and yellow. Pink is not my favorite color but I am extremely attracted to pink personalitied girls. I love everything about them so while looking at the site I thought “hmm, I wonder how accurately my last girlfriend would be reflected in the personality profile. Pretty much spot on. I will say thoughts of pink do give me peace and feelings of tranquility but … that’s just because if mama ain’t happy, nobody is happy. So … now … how about the final touch? We will call it Thres Leches for the famous and delicious Mexican 3 milks cake. Because there are 3 reasons why yellow is my favorite color.

    1. It is a strange feeling word in braille. Do a google image search for a picture of a braille cell. Braille is made up of 6 dots, arranged in two columns of 3 dots. So in this cell the letter a would be represented by a single dot raised in the top left column, the letter b would be 2 dots raised in the left column, if all 3 dots in the left column were raised, that would be the letter l. If the first and last dot in the first column were raised but the middle space blank’ that would be a k. One more example just to make sure you’ll be able to follow me. There are also special combinations of dot alignment which make up a kind of abbreviated shorthand. If you can imagine this braille cell with the 2nd dot in the left column raised and the first and last dot in the second column raised you would have something that looked like a left pointing arrow to you but is in fact shorthand for “ow” So now here’s what yellow would look like. The y would be the first and last dots in column one with all 3 dots in column 2 raised, then we would move to the next cell where the first dot in column 1 and the second dot in column 2 would indicate the e then two L’s which I described earlier and then the o sign at the end. Kinda looks weird huh? Well when I was learning braille my reading practices were always right before lunch so I would be hungry. And the first time I saw the word yellow we were having cafeteria brownies fried chicken and scalloped potatoes. I was seven or 8 I think. So … yellow became my favorite color. And until today not ten people in the world knew this story. The End. Afterward: Hope you found that to be interesting and not just a huge waste of time. Thank you nonetheless for reading my comment and building this site. T

    1. Thank you for that long yet entertaining and interesting comment. You have also taught me something about Braille, it’s something that I was not aware of before.

      Thanks for visiting.

      1. Thanks for your reply. I forgot I had commented. lol. My site did not have ssl certification at the time of your visit. It does now and is secure. I didn’t want to go through the whole process of getting an ssl certificate set up until I was ready to expand the site to accept user signups. The site has been significantly updated and big changes come tomorrow. Thanks again for your reply and feedback about my site. It is appreciated.

  3. I don’t know that I am creative or not but rest of all point is true and My favorite color is Yellow.

    Really, I am impressed who wrote this point.

    You often have a cheerful personality, the fun person to be around.

    You make decisions quickly, often impulsive.

    You often put on a happy face, even in bad and stressful times.

    A perfectionist, which means you can be critical of yourself and others.

    You sometimes think you are above other people, with a tendency to be arrogant.

    You have a broad knowledge base, knowledge about many different subjects.

    You tend to give in to instant gratification, spending money, drinking or eating junk without thinking about the consequences.

  4. Yellow’s a lovely colour. Fits courage, tenderness, optimism and cleverness. I enjoy beige, mustard, amber, cream, royal, and gold. Such a grand colour.

  5. I am so happy that Yellow is on here. I feel lie you guys are watching me bc this is 100% My personality.

Comments are closed.