Charlotte Russe is a site dedicated to selling clothing for juniors. The main users of the site are tweens to women in their twenties. The store sells clothing, accessories, and shoes along with informing users about the latest trends.
Charlotte Russe employs the use of yellow, pink, purple and blue for their homepage. The main colors used in the site are yellow and black. Throughout the site the majority of the text is in black with some accents of pink.
The colors are highly saturated with a shade to deepen their hue. The saturation of the colors allows for the highest contrast. While the colors maintain their intensity, they are not harsh on the eyes. There are four main colors seen on the homepage: yellow, blue, purple, and pink. Blue, purple, and pink share an analogous relationship.
In relation to the color wheel, yellow, pink, blue, and purple, the four main colors seen on the homepage, share both an analogous relationship. They are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. Yellow has a complementary relationship to purple.
Charlotte Russe has colors that lay in both active and passive range. Yellow exist on the active range and purple and pink in the passive range.
Based on Joe Hallock‘s research into color psychology, the yellow on Charlotte Russe’s site appeals to younger women. “Yellow, for example, is well liked by children, but begins to drop away by people as they become adults.”(http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/preferences.html). Though people tend to dislike yellow as they get older, Charlotte Russe ‘s main audience has not begun to experience this dislike yet. However, to maintain the attraction of adults in their twenties, Charlotte Russe added purple to their site as a complement to yellow. On Hallock‘s site, he states that older adults tend to go towards purples, blues, and greens as they grow older. Women also prefer purple as their second color choice after blue. Pink was not analyzed on Hallock‘s site but it has been a color long associated with women. As children we learn to associate pink with girls and blue for boys.
To appeal to the range of woman visiting their site, Charlotte Russe has used yellow to signify the youthfulness of their customers and purple as a favorite among woman. Pink adds an additional “girly” touch to the site. It creates an atmosphere of fun, joy, and youthfulness for all their shoppers.
Below you will find a color sample demonstrating some of the various color relationships.
