Written By : waikhong

Red is one of the basic primary colours and it does contribute a warmer aura to our million colours in everyday life. I wonder what happen if red is truncated out of our color palettes. I guess we will feel “blue” some of the time. As a Chinese, my culture told me about red as festivity and prosperity. In fact, our ancestors were all agreed about. I remembered my mom used to ask all of us in the family to buy the reddest clothes to celebrate Chinese New Year. I never failed to disappoint her and glad to feel the festive moment. Most of the decorative items are red: the tanglung, angpau, the cookies containers and many more. In fact, my father said he will remain the decorations to bring good luck for the whole year through.

Sometimes, red is an awakening and reminding color for all of us. Recently, when I started designing my installation poster, which is for HIV/AIDS Awareness Exhibition, I created many red ribbons as the symbol of HIV/AIDS. It is a symbol of alert, in fact, a reminder to everyone to be cautious and aware of all issues about HIV/ AIDS. I’m glad to be contributing back to the society and it is a very meaningful indeed. Many campaigns such as IPOD Red NANO and Motorola’s Join Red campaign (http://www.joinred.com) really did amazing as a campaign to fight AIDS in Africa.

At another elaboration, a cross in red, or a “red cross” brings a great meaning to protect human life and health. It is well recognized internationally and the first thing in my mind was the connection of the symbol to Red Crescent society in school that teaches its members how to perform First Aids. I think it is quite useful skills but I was a dropout from the society. If anyone really noticed, we had many melodramas about doctors, nurses or volunteers that help out in victims’ camp of a war zone. It was usually melodiously dramatic and very noble.

Red is a sexy color. Red lips on a beautiful woman can turned into the sexiest thing that one had ever seen. I just think of Marilyn Monroe: the best looking perfect voluptuous sexiest woman. I posted up the poster of her posing sexily with the white dress but the reddest lips that most men and even, women would admired. Just one more phrase of her: glamorous and anytime better than “America’s Next Top Model”.

Red is also a “grand” color. I always stay tune to TV programme that broadcasts any “Red carpet” scene. It shows all the beautiful celebrities in style when they walk out of their limousines into the grandest red carpet. I am laughing by myself crazily because there is such detailed explanation about “red carpet” in Wikipedia’s encyclopedia when I searched the keywords. Perfect!

I actually want to further express “red” but I guess it is just right in length for a reading. I embraced red as one of my favorite colors and I will always do.