What’s your country’s favorite color? By crunching data on one million users’ color-coded image downloads of their library of more than 65 million stock photos, Shutterstock has created an interactive map visualizing the year’s most popular color choices in 20 nations around the world.
Despite colors having wildly different symbolic associations from culture to culture (i.e. the color green is forbidden in parts of Indonesia, while in Mexico, it traditionally stands for independence), the 20 countries analyzed here have relatively similar preferences when it comes to the dominant hues of their stock photos. The map reveals that, at least in the stock photo world, cool colors are, well, cool right now, while warm colors are less popular. Calming light greens and muted blues dominate the color-coded map, colors found in most natural landscapes regardless of geographic location. Only two countries of the 20, Russia and Switzerland, had shades of red among their top three most downloaded colors.
