A hundred ways
to feel.

This collection begins with the 12 color families in Graf1x’s poster and expands them into 100 shades with English feeling labels. All 100 shade–feeling pairings are proposed design interpretations, not validated psychological measurements or collected personal experiences.

What comes from the reference?

The family structure and broad associations draw on Graf1x’s article and 12-color poster. Twelve anchor colors were sampled from blank areas of that JPEG. The other 88 colors, their descriptive names, and every specific shade–feeling pairing were selected for this study. A HEX code specifies a screen color, not an emotion.

Three ways to make a map

• Taxonomy: a hierarchy of 12 color families and their shades. Some shades could fit more than one family.
• Morphology: nine groups based on HSL lightness and saturation. The cutoffs are organizing choices; HSL is not a perceptually uniform model.
• Typology: eight recurring feeling patterns. One primary pattern is assigned per entry to keep the map readable; other readings remain possible.

Patterns and tensions in this draft

• Vivid colors appear with both energized and unsettled feelings: excitement and overstimulation can sit close together.
• Blue shades connect freedom, trust and loneliness, so one color family does not describe one emotional state.
• Dark shades carry both assurance and withdrawal in this collection.
• The poster mixes emotions with values and stylistic impressions. Here, labels include feelings, moods and felt states.

Research question

When does a color’s meaning come from the color itself, and when does it come from the memory, place or situation around it?

From a reference set to a personal archive

For the TechB collection assignment, use these as prompts for 100 observations of your own. Record the item, place, date, color, feeling and what happened. Keep mismatches: a color that feels different to you is useful evidence, too.

Credits

Reference: Graf1x, Color Meaning and Psychology and its related poster. Project direction: the student. AI-assisted curation, English labels, mapping and website implementation: OpenAI Codex. This site does not reproduce the poster or claim that Graf1x endorses the expanded pairings.