The color design of the book sleeve and the consumer's purchasing behaviors

Abstract

This paper aims to explore which color design of the book sleeve was chosen by the consumers for purchase. 160 university students, who had paid for the book, were requested to choose a book covered by one of 16 types of the sleeve. The book was the textbook of psychology which would be used in the class. The cover of the book was largely in yellow-green with black gothic letters (Kanji). The book sleeve chosen most was the white surface with red letters of Mincho font and the black one with white letters of Mincho font. The results generally showed that the clear image of the book sleeve was critical and the Mincho font was preferred. The second experiments were conducted both in Japan and China, in which the image of the same books with 16 types of the sleeve were measured with the SD method for the students in each universities. The results show that for Chinese students the image of "heavy-light" is important for choice of book. They prefer to a book having "heavy” image. On the other hand there seems no particular image which is relevant with choice of book for Japanese students.