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Interior Design Basics:
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Interior Design Color Basics
Color is magic. You can use color to establish the mood of the room, to fool the eye into thinking a small room is large or a large room is small, or to camouflage defects in a room and dramatize highlights. Even with a limited budget, a skilful use of color can bring an interior design to life.
A Brief History of Color
Today, even the most humble house may feature a broad range of brightly colored furniture and accessories. This wasn't always the case. Until the last century, bright colors were basically reserved for royalty and the wealthy. The common person had to be content to live in a world of relative drabness.
The color purple was obtained in Roman times from the gland of a tiny snail. It took thousands of the poor creatures to obtain enough dye for one Emperor’s robe. Therefore purple became associated with royalty. Many other colors were also only available to the wealthy due to their rarity and expense.
Green used to be obtained by pulverizing the gem malachite, ultramarine was obtained by pulverizing the gem lapis lazuli and the Incas used to obtain carmine red from a small insect.
The modern age of color was born accidentally. The first synthetic color was mauve which was discovered when a doctor was experimenting with coal tar and trying to produce quinine. As a result the scientific community began their quest to make other colored dyes.
Today there isn't a color that can't be enjoyed by everyone.
Color Facts
Hue is the name given to a specific color.
The 3 primary hues are red, yellow and blue.
The primary hues can be mixed to produce the secondary hues of orange, green and violet.
- Red plus Yellow produces Orange.
- Yellow plus Blue produces Green.
- Blue plus Red produces Violet.
Cool hues are Blue, Green and Violet.
Warm hues are Red, Orange and Yellow.
Neutral hues are White, Black and Brown.
There are two ways you can alter the appearance of a color without changing its hue, these are value and intensity.
The value of a color refers to the lightness (tint) or darkness (shade) of a hue.
You can warm up a cool color by producing a darker shade of that color.
You can cool down a warm color by producing a lighter tint of that color.
If you add White to a hue you produce a tint.
If you add Brown to a hue you produce a shade.
Intensity refers to the purity of a hue.
To mute the intensity of a hue you add a little of the hues complement.
- Red is the complement of Green.
- Yellow is the complement of Violet.
- Blue is the complement of Orange.
You can cool down a warm hue by muting the tone of that hue.
You can also warm up a cool color by muting the tone of that hue.
You can also change the warmth or coolness of a hue by changing the texture of the surface it is applied to.
- Smooth textures tend to be cooler.
- Rough textures tend to be warmer.
As a general rule it is better to use cooler hues in a warm climate and warm hues in a cool climate.
Bright or intense colors add visual weight to an object or room. Subdued or neutral colors reduce visual weight.
Bold patterns add visual weight. Solids or simple patterns reduce visual weight.
The Color Wheel
RED
VIOLET ORANGE
BLUE YELLOW
GREEN
(red is opposite green, orange is opposite blue, yellow is opposite violet)
therefore
(red is the complement of green, orange is the complement of blue, yellow is the complement of violet)
Color Scheme
An interior design color scheme can be built around one color or, more frequently; it is built around the interplay of two or more colors. When you start planning the color scheme of a room start by deciding upon the color mood you want.
Decide if you want a cool mood or a warm mood. Once you have decided on this you have already narrowed down your choice to the hues that have the proper mood. Let's use a warm mood as our example.
Decide now which warm hue you will use as your major color. Then use one or two other warm hues as accents. Let one color (your major color) predominate. Let the others merely play off it.
There are three main color schemes that are used by professional designers:
- Monochromatic Schemes
- Adjacent Schemes
- Complementary Schemes (which break the rules and end up being more neutral in mood as a result).
Monochromatic Schemes are where you use your major color not only as the predominant color but also as the accent color. You accomplish this by using different tones and textures of the same color, for example using red as your major color and a tint of red for the accent.
Adjacent Schemes are where you use colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel, for example red as your major color and orange as your accent.
Complementary Schemes are where you use colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, for example you use red as your major color and therefore set a warm mood and use green as your accent.
Keep in mind though bright, intense complementary colors are disquieting when placed side by side. You get better results using tints or shades of complementary colors side by side.
Generally don't mix shades and tints though. What I mean by this is, for example, use a tint of red next to a tint of green or a shade of red next to a shade of green but don't use a tint of red next to a shade of green. Use tints or shades of approximately equal value. You can also use complementary muted tones of approximately equal intensity in this type of scheme as an option.
As a rule, if you want a room to have a definitive mood use a monochromatic scheme or an adjacent scheme. If you want the mood to be more neutral use a complementary scheme.
Here is a trick of the trade. Successful Interior Designers don't choose colors; they choose fabrics that contain a color combination that they like and they think are appropriate for the mood of the job.
Find an existing color combination on a fabric that suits the mood you are trying to achieve and refer to these colors as you decide on where you can use these different colors in your design, e.g. major and accent wall color, furniture fabric color and cushion fabric color etc.
Now let's use our new color knowledge to explore wall treatment options in the next chapter.
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