What is the symbolism of red?
LKPete Hello: I was a student at Parsons in the 1970s. I’ve been writing a book about color meanings around the world. It’ll be out in the fall of 1999 and is called Global Graphics, Color. It won’t be out soon enough to help you, but here are a couple of books that can: 1) When Blue Meant Yellow, which is about how colors got their names, and 2: The Color Compendium, which is an encyclopedia of color. In the meantime, I can tell you that from what I’ve discovered, there are lots of different meanings for red in almost every culture. It always means “blood” but even then it can be either blood shed heroically or the blood of a victim. In Asia, red is almost always good luck. The main point you’ll need to focus on is that red (as with all colors) means different things depending upon the context in which it is used. In Japan, red ink is a traditional method of writing a letter than ends a relationship (like a dear john, or a pink slip). A red sportscar in the US might be thought of as a
