A study on color emotion for plastic eyewear

Abstract

This study explored consumers' Kansei evaluation of the color of plastic eyewear. The procedure included: (1) collecting over 400 plastic eyewear samples on Taiwan's market; (2) collecting emotional adjectives for describing the color of eyewear frames, (3) selecting one representative eyewear frame and 10 variation colors by four design experts, (4) selecting 8 representative emotional adjectives with Kawakita Jiro method, (5) conducting experiment with Semantic Differential method to record the subjective evaluation of the eyewear samples, (6) analyzing data collected with multi-variable analysis and principal component analysis. The results indicated that: the Red frame had the highest scores on "avant-garde", "strong" as well as "unique"; the Pink frame exhibited "soft" feel; the Yellow frame showed "young" most; the Green frame demonstrated "vulgar" impression; the Indigo frame displayed the most "popular" and "rational"; the Black frame presented "traditional", "stable", "noble" and "formal"; while the Purple frame represented the most "sensational". On the whole, the color of plastic eyewear had significant emotional appeal for peoples. Different color collocation of eyewear will change the overall emotional reflection. The results of the study may serve as a reference of color plan for eyewear designer as well as end users. © 2010 Springer-Verlag London Limited.