Try reds on yellows.
It’s all about the implicit meaning of colors, colors convey meaning.
Branding plays a big part in it, dark blue is used by many big financial institutions, and this has caused the color blue itself to be associated with reliable financial services… therefore it makes sense for a financial institution to use blue in their house-style rather then pink. Thus, dark blue is branded as a color that conveys a feeling of trust.
Heres an article that explains it very clearly:
Look at SitePoint’s logo… orange and blue… very nice! 
But colors don’t impact me very much, it’s the design as whole that does.
Hello,
Ye, it is I, the creator of this now most infamous thread, and soon to be historic stickey. Anyhoo, I know my subject line and first post aren’t worded the best, but what I was trying to say, is that nearly every(or the overwhelming majority) of the TOP Top top companies in America (and we’re not talking black and decker, john deer & stanley - people, try Walmart, Microsoft, Exxon, General Motors etc. ) use a either red, blue, or black or a combination of the three - for their company logo.
Checkout the guy who mentioned the Fortune 500 list. If someone has the time, try to go down the whole thing and find out what % use these three colors. I bet you it is about 90%.
And, the truly unbelievable thing is that we’re really only talking about two colors here. (red & blue) Although we classify Black as a color, it is really the pure embodiment of anti-color…anyone who understands what color is and how it is made and/or percevied knows that black is nowhere in the equation. That’s why there are two eras of television. Black & White and Color. If Black was truly considered a color, than wouldn’t Black and White be Color Television?
Things that make you go hmmmmm.
Im also tired of blue 
its boring if the logo and site layout are dominant dark blue color
is so much better than
Probably reasons behind companys color decisions also lie in print options (some business cards, stacionary, brochures etc), the more colors you use the more expensive it gets right?
yeah, black isnt a color but those who don’t know much physics regard it as just one of the colors, it don’t matter to average Bob person
Yo so poor…all tha rainbows in yer neighborhood are in black & white.
Black is inexpensive to reproduce on paper and is easy to read. Red and blue are also bold and easy to read and are among the most popular colors.
The most common colors on national flags are red, white and blue, various combinations. (For example, Argentina’s national flags is blue and white.)
Yellow and green are less popular, and green, especially, is often equated with “third world” nations, typically representing forests or agriculture on their flags. Similarly, green often represents the environment on logos.
Just to throw in some more craziness:
[edit]Ah… This, too:
[/edit]
Yea, two postal services, crazinesssss indeed!
I don’t think it’s a deep psychological meaning at all. From working at the yellow pages, I learned that red, blue or black is standard printer colors, any other color is consider full color and thus more expensive to have letterheads, enevoples and anything else printed. So I think it’s because it’s just cheaper.
It also makes their logos simple, and we tend to remeber them better then the more complicated ones.
Just my two cents.
Jodi :0)
Here’s my 2/5 of a nickel:
Color associations are mostly cultural. It would make sense to use (or not use) a given color combination keeping in mind your intended audience.
[ot]
It depends on what you mean by largest (profit? revenue? employees? market cap?) but in terms of market cap, GE outstrips Citigroup by about $80 billion. ;)[/ot]
More on topic… as someone has already said, most major corporations have logos that look good in black and white (and thus in any color). When you use your logo on everything from packaging to TV to websites to the sides of trucks to billboards to business cards, you want it to be flexible.
Yes it’s important to remember colour psychology has a heavy cultural bias. For instance in the western world, and in particular America yellow is seen as a sign of cowardice. However in China, it is a sign of happiness and prosperity!
I believe it has mostly to do with the fact that we still live in a world where print material takes precedence over all other types of media. CMYK colors are the easiest and cheapest to produce. Mixing these to get variations leads to agreat deal of costs and complication. Especially if the company is international and has to trust that the materials will be available everywhere.
To sum it up real short, here’s what I think:
Red attracts attention real easy making the logo easy to “see”. Blue on the other hand is a harmonic color; very smooth and calm and generally looks good. Blue is also very easy to combine with other colors. Black is a good complement to almost ANY color. It doesn’t matter which color you pick – if you choose black to go with it, it’ll probably look at least decent. Plus, black is a very strong color making the logo more “stable”.
To me it depends what the site is about. If is a site that I would like to browse and read the information longer than 5 minutes. I wouldnt want the colors to be outstanding like red and orange or more than 3 colors. Can I say strong colors or colors more than 3 is blinding and certain sites need some kind “seizure control”.
If you have a site that would require or invite the guest/user to stay longer than 5 minutes. One shouldnt use strong blinding colors or multicolors. As far as the GE site mentioned http://ge.com. Yes they have purple. But the topic areas are in purple bold. Easy on the eye and inviting for the guest to stay longer and browse what they have to offer.
It would be nice to see certain sites that use any shade of blue to use some form of color. Maybe they can have a red or yellow outline on certain areas or what not. I guess this would be a great area for designers/progammers to play with I guess.
quoted from http://www.crystal-cure.com/orange.html
People who like orange are usually thoughtful and sincere.
and our website is done in Orange !
Thyrium,
ExxonMobil (which has a solid Red logo) has a market cap of around $378.10 BILLION, which is $140 BILLION more than Citigroup. Microsoft and GE are both bigger than Citigroup in terms of marketcap.