A study of color association in Pixar’s animations: an analysis of color based characters

Abstract

 This paper focuses on color and its use as an associative element to emotions, capable of conveying meanings and messages. This topic intends to explore the visual communication area as a means of investigation and analysis in communication design, focusing on studying the films by Pixar Animation Studios. Therefore, a statistical method was utilized based on the character’s colors and emotions. This way, a statistical correlation was generated using specific software for statistics. It was possible to identify the intensity of those correlations (strong, moderate, and weak). So, it was possible to gather a data amount that was subsequently compared based on color theory. Based on the correlation between color and emotions, it was possible to have a better understanding and a scientific approach when comparing it with color theory. Thus, through color theory, one can interpret the character’s color on a chromatic level. It can be just the character or it as a whole in the movie. Then, with the theory, previously established about color in the design, it was viable that the colors analyzed in this work were related to the character’s emotions that they were supposed to convey. Which makes it a narrative element to associate color and emotion in Pixar Animations.