COLOUR-GUIDELINES FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA: FOCUSING ON UNIVERSITY IDENTITY

This study presents a suggested array of colour guidelines for the university homepage of the University of Malaya (UM) in Malaysia which represents the school’s distinction and brand image. The importance of University Identity on institutional websites is to secure their identity and differentiation from other institutions. Despite having a multicultural heritage, it is difficult to find colour guidelines of any universities in Malaysia. There are limited studies on colour analysis of UM as one of the top public universities in Malaysia. We suggest colour guidelines using 18 types of primary colours, sub-colours, and second colour for the UM website that we believe would further reflect its University Identity, its status as well as enhance the nature of multicultural outlook of the institution. Accordingly, this study will have an academic and policy-level significance not only for Malaysia but other international institutions as well


Introduction
In an age of increasing and quickening competition, universities are entering a new phase in the world. In order to survive the competition, establishing a creative University Identity (UI) is becoming more important to secure the individuality of the university as well as to differentiate from other universities.1 The UI is defined as a design work for a university's image and it originated from a concept of corporate identity (CI) that is applied to universities.
UI is used to build a university's image through all visual elements such as symbols, logos, colours, and fonts to boost brand value.2 UI helps to establish a successful university image by redefining a new symbol or image, therefore increasing the trust and belonging of its members internally and externally colour have an affect on the attitude of an observer. For example, from the perspective of marketers, management is needed through understanding of colours, from product packaging to CI.4 In so doing, UI can be an influential tool in enhancing a university's image.
Since the image of the university is reflected in human psychology through colours, the institution should build its own image through colours, which is one of the design elements in forming the university's own identity.5 This study is focused on an analysis on colours of the UI applied to a university's homepage. Since a university's website is the best method for public relations and advertising, it is necessary to carefully design the work to differentiate the university from other schools.6 The importance of a university's UI on its website is steadily growing. Many universities present their own images by constructing web pages using certain colours to secure their identity and differentiation that contain their unique characteristics. However, the range of colours in institutional web pages reveals a lack of colour utilization in which only cast and auxiliary coloura are presented. In addition, there is a lack of colour harmony, the usage of various combinations, and utilization.7 Moreover, Malaysian cases are hard to find in the existing literature on designs and images; therefore, this study will have a positive effect on colour research in Malaysia. In the field of tourism, Malaysia is famous for the "colours of Malaysia." The "colours of Malaysia" signifies culture, fashion and traditional locations; it implies that Malaysia and colours are inextricably linked. However, it is difficult to find colour guidelines of public institutions in Malaysia. In particular, even though the University of Malaya (UM) is the best national university in Malaysia and is ranked 38th among in Asia, a study about colour analysis on UM is rarely found in literature reviews. On the other hand, neighboring universities such as Nanyang Technology University (NTU) Singapore and the Ewha Woman's University in the Republic of Korea have published colour guidelines by analyzing their university logos or their UI along within their homepages. Hence, this study has an academic and policy-level significance for Malaysia. This study will suggest the colour guidelines that can be used on the website to improve the current study on colour utilization; it also suggests one indicator that can be applied to reflect the current trends. In addition, we will apply the university's represented colours to its website so that we can enhance the identity expression and originality of the university.

Literature Review
Amid rapidly changing trends, colour guidelines are mainly included in urban landscaping planning. Each city and county uses colours to provide uniqueness and differentiation of the region and as part of urban branding. Public administrations try to develop symbolic colours to build unique characteristics of their city, to symbolize the city and to strengthen its cultural identity; and establish practical guidelines that can be systematically applied to the functions and characteristics of the said city.8 Colour planning for overseas cities has taken place earlier than Malaysia's public institutions, and policies were established in various ways to establish their unique colour schemes.

Seoul
The city of Seoul developed its symbolic colours identifying it as a "city with a story of 600 years where tradition and modern characteristics coexisted." Colour guidelines were established by regions as part of an active strategy to establish the city's image. In order to discover and strengthen the cultural identity, the city published practical guidelines that could be systematically applied to Seoul's structural composition, characteristics, and commercialization.9 Through methodical research and analysis, Seoul's natural and human environmental colours were extracted into 250 phenomenological colours, 50 regional colours, and 10 representative colours.10 The colour scheme became a practical method for short and long-term urban planning by utilizing the extracted colours through the designation of the range of applications for each region and function ( Figure 1).

London
In the early 1990's, the integration of signs and colours in various facilities in London, England was under the direction of the city's authorities. Manuals on the production, installation, size, and colour of various street facilities were then produced. Among them, signs indicating the name of subway stations with a blue background colour in the red circle pattern became regular since the 1990s. Additionally, in the case of a deteriorated facility, "black" or "blue" was added to the red background ( Figure 2). Through the application of blue to the exterior of London City Hall, a new urban identity became transformed from red to blue.

Figure 2. Facility design of London, England
In contrast, Shimane Prefecture of Japan produced colour guidelines using the four seasons and climate of the region (Figure 3). The guidelines are widely used for establishing colour landscape plans as well as in the use of environmental colours and colour extraction methods.  It can be said that many universities in Korea have established their represented colours to express their image of the university through UI, and have presented colour guidelines using selected representative colours through effective standardization. However, in many cases, as shown in Figure 2, only the digital value standardization of colours are used.
As shown in Figure 3, guidelines for using colours are also limited, and alternatives for applying them in various fields are not shown. In the case of Seoul Women's University  In contrast, Yale University, a prestigious American university that is anchored by its 300-year-old traditions and solid philosophy of education, its guidelines presents its history and usage of university-specific colours, the function of colours, and additional dominant colours. For example, Yale Blue represents Yale's exclusive colour which is blue; and its additional exclusive colour is also basically blue though it differs in saturation and brightness  In the case of the Nanyang Technology University (NTU) which is a prominent university in Singapore known for its technological innovations and signature art and design programs, the university's colour guidelines corresponds with its UI within the category of brand guide. NTU classifies its colour guidelines into primary, secondary, and a prestige metallic colour palette. The palette is expressed in cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK); red, green, and blue (RGB); hexadecimal (HEX); and Pantone Colours, making it easy to understand the university's brand and image ( Figure 9).14 13 Yale University website, Yale Identity, https://yaleidentity.yale.edu/web, accessed at 27 November 2019. 14 A collection of colours produced by Pantone in USA. The number of colours is 1015 colours of glossy plate and 1013 of matte plate.

Theoretical framework
Colour harmonization has an association effect on multiple colours, and it provides value like beauty or comfort by using colours with the same, similar, or contrasting order.16 By harmonizing with combinations of colours with differences in brightness, combinations of colours and complementary colours that are close or far from the colour wheel, colour palette can become reminiscent of continuity, unity, and symbolism. Therefore, colours can be used for branding and marketing and by using the appropriate colour matching methods, it is possible to design competitive CI as well as UI.17 In this point of view, CI and UI should be visible and understandable from the viewer's perspective, which is comparable to the purpose of "universal design." The term universal design was first introduced by an American architect by the name of Ronald L. Mace under the philosophy of "design for all ages and abilities."18 This design philosophy is closely associated with the theory of colours for ease of use which advocates design for all. The colours that enter should be visible light for the eye and should be recognized by the brain. Colour universal design enhances products, facilities, buildings, environment, services, and information that are related to the diversity of human beings and are usually user friendly. Web pages of institutions are virtual spaces-not physical spaces-and can be configured in various ways depending on the purpose of the production. The pagescontains visual information, and it is a space where various design principles are added to induce the user's convenience through UI and User Experience (UX) designed into the web page. It is also the most effective and inexpensive medium to promote the brand by taking advantage of the fact that it is easily accessible to viewers.19 Moreover, colour guidelines are used to give each university its uniqueness as part of branding. This involves the development of symbolic colours to build unique characteristics of a university as well as the establishment of colours to symbolize a university in order to discover and strengthen its cultural identity. In addition, colour guidelines establish practical guidelines that can be systematically applied to the characteristics of the universities.20

Methodology
The purpose of this study is to identify the colour guidelines for university websites. The subject of the research is UM, and the scope of the survey and analysis is associated with the physical image of exclusive colours and natural environments currently applied by the said 17  institution. The study includes analyzing the elements of human environment of images, education, teaching, and lessons, so that a colour palette applicable to the university's homepage could be proposed. As a specific method, we examined intrinsic colours by utilizing information from literature reviews and case studies on UM. In order to construct colour guidelines for university webpages based on the literature review, visual inspections and existing digital mosaic methods using the Eyedropper tool from Adobe Illustrator were used to extract colour. UM's private colours were extracted using the Eyedropper tool, and its natural colours were extracted with a Canon EOS M3 mirrorless camera under natural daylight conditions between three hours after sunrise and three hours before sunset.
Furthermore, a digital mosaic method using Eyedropper tool was also employed during this process. In order to understand not only physical factors such as natural environment and image of the target university, but also humanistic factors such as education, teaching, and lessons, we analyzed questionnaire about image colour through the SPSS Statistics software.

The UM Human Environmental Colours Survey was analyzed using 'Naver Office
Form' and 'Microsoft Excel'. The colour expressions according to the analysis results were based on the KS(Korea Standard) colours system. For the printing and computer screens, the colour proposal was expressed in CMYK and RGB. In addition, the three main colours of the institution are also represented as Pantone colours.  Simultaneously, the colours pertaining to UM's natural environment was extracted through Munsell colourization for the representative buildings and targeted places in campus. Table 2 shows a serial colouration belt. In terms of human environmental factors, we examined colours and tones associated with images of UM through a survey. 26% participants were men and 74% were women who attended the university (Figure 11).

Figure 11. Percentages of participants by gender
Using the I.R.I image scale, we analyzed the result of the questionnaire related to images associated with UM.21 Participants reflected pride in the images of UM whereby 52% signified them as "Top/Best." Subsequently, the rest viewed the same images to be "Old," "Famous," "Classic," Academic and so on between 4 % and 10% (Figure 12).  When analyzed using I.R.I image scale, images of the university generated characteristics such as gorgeousness, classic themes, calmness, and modernity ( Figure 13).
As a result of examining the colours and tones perceived in images of the university, as shown in Figure 14, overwhelmingly 66% of the colour images were dominated by blue colour. This was followed by yellow (12%), red purple (9%) and purple blue (7%). Figure 15 indicates two strongest clear-toned images. The highest was a vivid tone which was at 33% and a darker one at 22%.   Figure 18 shows the colours and tones of UM's academic target image are associated with "yellow" as the most used colour at 55%. "Blue" and "purple" were the next highest, at 20% and 9%, respectively. In terms of tones, the highest is at 55% of lighter tones, followed by "vivid" ones with 43%. Tone usage indicates that it is clear and precise without any lower variations in the targeted image ( Figure 19).

Guidelines and composition of colour palette for UM
This study proposes the usage of "primary colour "sub colour," and "second colour" as UM's colour palette by analyzing the elements of human environments, physical images, exclusivity, natural environments, association images, and motto. The primary colour is extracted from the three colours used in the UI of UM, expressed in blue, yellow, and red colours in CMYK, RGB, and Pantone colours ( Figure 20).

Figure 20 . Primary colours of UM
The sub colour is proposed as a colour that is not high in saturation, which can serve as an auxiliary colour by to analyze the natural environment and human-environment elements of UM ( Figure 21).

Figure 21. Colours proposed as sub colour of UM (18 kinds)
The second range of colour was then suggested as a colour that was able to act as an accent colour with high saturation in the academic background and elements of the humanities environment ( Figure 22).

Conclusion
The purpose of this study is to propose how colour guidelines that can be used in universities to construct a colour palette to enhance the competitiveness and strengthen the identity of the university. The subject of the analysis was University of Malaya (UM), a national university located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The scope of research included physical images such as main colours and natural environments around UM along with human environmental elements.In terms of research methodology, pictures were taken with the Adobe Illustrator Eyedropper tool and Canon EOS M3 mirrorless camera; they were colour-coded into the Munsell system using visual inspection and digital mosaic. They were then extracted using questionnaires to realize additional images and colours of humanities and environmental elements.
Hence, the final suggestions of colour guidelines for UM are as follows. Primary colours were proposed by extracting the colour of the exclusive colours used in the UI of UM; and sub colours were recommended based on the questionnaire results and the colours extracted from the nature and humanities environments. Second colour or point colour was conjured by high saturation colour, which is the colour of UM's graduation gown and other academic backgrounds in the survey results. All colours have been suggested will embody the environmental elements of the university not only in colour but also as the colour of association, symbol, and space.
In addition, various colour plaettes have been proposed beyond the limitations of the existing monotonous tone changes. In other words, the recommended colours can be used for UI or layout design series or variations, and be applied in many other fields. It is expected that this study will be a meaningful case study in that it has created colour guidelines for UM designed to be utilized in channels and format that are accessed by many. In so doing, the authors believe that colours proposed here will be able to evoke a newer identity corresponding with UM's identity and status.