Interesting, but...
I wonder where they get their data...
I grew up in Brazil (a substantial piece of South America), and the color of mourning is black... As for blue meaning "trouble", I only heard of such use in a hospital setting. In fact, the expression "tudo azul" (lit. "all is blue") means "all is well".
You probably know that black is a color of mourning in the West and red is a lucky color in China.
But did you know that green is the color of death in South America?
Or that blue is the color of love in Africa?
Most multinational corporations have come to know that colors mean very different things across the world.
In a new Information is Beautiful infographic by London-based designer David McCandless and Portland, Ore.-based design collective Always With Honor, the world’s cultures — 10 of them, from Western to Japanese to Hindu to African — are mapped out along a ring of 62 meanings.
Each concentric ring corresponds to a culture; each slice corresponds to a meaning.
Study the image long enough and you’ll realize that operating a business across continents brings all sorts of cultural challenges: different colors convey distinct meanings for cultural cues such as intelligence, danger, wisdom and authority.
See the full infographic here and explore the data behind the work here on Google Docs.
