The Rainbow Connection
Hello! Thanks so much for tuning in to this marvelous episode on color.
I’m going to dive right into the color of the week. Because it’s a big week for color. If you listened to last week’s episode, you know that I made a prediction for color matching company Pantone’s Color of the Year. And I really could not have been more wrong with my prediction, and if you want to hear it you can listen to that episode called if I Had a Million Dollars. The Pantone Color of the Year for 2022 is called Very Peri, which is a variety of periwinkle. Pantone did a few things differently this year. Here are some of the official statements that Pantone has made about the color.
“As we move into a world of unprecedented change, the selection of PANTONE 17-3938, Very Peri brings a novel perspective and vision of the trusted and beloved blue color family, encompassing the qualities of the blues, yet at the same time with its violet red undertone, PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri displays a spritely, joyous attitude and dynamic presence that encourages courageous creativity and imaginative expressions.”
- LEATRICE EISEMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE PANTONE COLOR INSTITUTE
“Displaying a carefree confidence and a daring curiosity that animates our creative spirit, inquisitive and intriguing PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri helps us to embrace this altered landscape of possibilities, opening us up to a new vision as we rewrite our lives. Rekindling gratitude for some of the qualities that blue represents complemented by a new perspective that resonates today, PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri places the future ahead in a new light”
Every year since 2000, around this time, Pantone releases their official color of the year. Most years, the color usually captures an essence or trend that's been brewing under the radar and brings it to the main stream. This color is for multiple modalities, not just interior design or paint or anything like that. To determine their color of the year, Pantone researches graphic design, industrial design, fashion, advertising, the beauty industry, even things like food trends and travel. Most years, I feel like I see the connection between the color of the year and the things that have been going on in those worlds. This year my guess was wrong, but also I felt completely in the dark on the decision, and I had to do some digging to truly understand where this color was coming from.
So there’s a few things to know about Very Peri. This color of the year is unlike any color we’ve ever seen before, because it was created, brand new, specifically for the color of the year. Every year prior to this, Pantone has selected from their massive existing library of colors. The company’s website even has suggestions for similar colors from their existing library for designers scrambling to get a close match which includes 2366 C and 2116 C.
Pantone has been very intentional about displaying this color in primarily video format, staying away from true static color. In fact, there are already a number of NFT’s associated with the color, and this digital interest in Crypto, blockchain, and the Metaverse is really where the inspiration for the color is coming from, which explains why my guess was so off because I go out of my to avoid anything in that world. It’s all so bad for the environment in terms of energy consumption. Two years ago we were all ready to save the planet, and this year everyone’s ready to jump into a system that uses more energy than entire countries in a year. But, nevertheless, this digital world is being pushed as the next big thing and Pantone is all about it. So where is this purple shade coming from? Pantone has been very careful not use the word purple anywhere. It’s blue, with an undertone of red. I guess the inspiration is all the blue light we’ve been absorbing over the past two years, and rather than trying to block it, Pantone wants to celebrate it.
We went through the color basics in the episode “She's A Rainbow”, and today we are going to dive in deeper. This is a beginner/intermediate color discussion that will help you put together a sound game plan to implement color in your space. I see so many spaces that are inspirational, or meant to be inspirational, in magazines, on Pinterest, and different types of social media; and they can be so beige. I mean major oatmeal vibes. And beige is a wonderful, versatile neutral that I love. There are ways to add visual variety to a space aside from color, but shape, texture, and contrast can only take you so far.
I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as a bad color, there is only bad color implementation. We're going to get into what good color implementation is all about today. If you're a fan of an all white space, this episode is for you especially. Color has the power to convert. I have seen so many people choose super beige, white, or gray spaces, only to settle into their final results and note how bland everything feels. And many people who say they don’t like a lot of color are actually just afraid of making a mistakes. There is deep seated fear for a lot of people around color; using it, mixing different colors. It scary! Because when color looks bad, it looks so bad. Plus, there are also unspoken rules around color use and class. Now you know I certainly don’t feel this way, but it’s common to dismiss something that uses a broad color scheme as childish, silly, or even cheap; and to equate a light, monochromatic color scheme with sophistication, elegance and wealth. If you have an all white space, you certainly must have a team people to clean it for you.
These are old ideas that have been slowly been ingrained into society over years. And we must rebel from these, our livelihood depends on it. Bright, saturated, varying colors occur in nature all over the world and are beneficial for our production of serotonin. There’s a trend that’s been round for a while now called Biophillic Design, and it’s widely misunderstood. The concept is that if we look to nature for inspiration in our home design, we will be happier. But this usually shows up as greenwalls, plants, furniture that is shaped like river rocks - it’s all very one dimensional. But nature isn’t just green plants. Nature includes stunning golden, pink, and purple hues in sunrises and sunsets; bright red fruit on trees and bushes, iridescent teal feathers and insect wings, flowers, mountains, bodies of water - they all offer us stunning, vibrant colors. And we love seeing them.
If you try to tell me that you can look at the bright aqua expansion of Caribbean water and you don’t feel joy, I won’t believe you. But, if we bring that color into our homes, and simply slap it on all four walls in a room, it can start feel like a weird imitation, like we’ve landed in the uncanny valley. It’s close to the real thing, but a little too off and something is just wrong. This is where a Color Strategy needs to be applied. If you have Color Strategy, your space will feel undeniably magnetic. Without it, your space can feel chaotic, jumbled, and unrefined. So, what is Color Strategy? It’s all about using color in a way that is intentional, that makes your space feel it’s largest, most pulled together, and most refined. It all comes down to four key components.
Lighting - If you ask a scientist, they might tell you color doesn’t exist without light, and yet we rarely talk about the two together in the context of an interior design color scheme. When implementing color, you have to factor in two types of light. First, there’s the natural light in the space. Every room and every building has a unique quality and quantity of sunlight that it receives, based on its location on the planet, its orientation, size and placement of windows, surrounding objects, and time of year. You can easily collect all the information you need with simple observational notes. Consider this a lighting inventory. You can get super scientific and order a lightometer from your local photography supply shop, or you can simply take pictures of a room, three times a day, with no electric lighting turned on. Morning, noon, and night. Take down some notes each time. How close to the window do you have to be to easily read the text in a book? What about taking a good selfie? Are there certain walls or other surfaces that get lots of direct sunlight, and others that don’t?
Once you collect your observations, you can start to designate sunlight zones. These zones may divid up a room, or stretch across multiple rooms. I like to label each zone with a rating of one to four to indicate brightness. For example, my apartment gets great sunlight in the living room - it’s super sunny. There is a bright white building across the way that reflects tons of light back into the space. Sometimes the light feels blinding. This is a level 1 lighting zone, it’s the brightest. The kitchen shares this level of light but the window is much smaller, so the effects are less harsh. This is a level 2. The bedroom on the other hand is nestled behind an elm tree, so even though it gets nice light, its dappled by the leaves and branches, and the sun is certainly much stronger close to the window than by the back of the room. This room is split between levels 3 and 4 - 3 at the window and 4 torwards the back. My dining nook is away from any windows and is the darkest corner of the home. This area is definitely a 4.
These numbers will help you determine color schemes for those particular areas. Bright areas that rank a 1 or 2, allow for darker, richer, moody, cooler colors. Dark areas ranked 3 or 4, need lighter, warmer, brighter colors. If you have areas that you’ve determined are level 1 or 2, these are great opportunities for rich accent walls and visual interest. Areas ranking as a 3 or 4 can still have accent colors, but they will need additional lighting to keep them feeling vibrant.
Speaking of which, you’ll need to assess the second type of light, which is electric light, and more specifically, its color temperature. We talked about this in the episode “You Light Up My Life” , and now we’re applying it to color. You want to pick a color temperature for all of your bulbs, and keep it consistent, and the color temperature you select may be dependent on personal preference (cool light looks more like natural day light, warm light has that glow of an incandescent bulb), but you want to make sure it is responding to the color tones in your home. If you have a primarily warm toned color scheme, like oranges and yellows, and you use a super cool light, it can counteract the color rendering and make the colors appear dull or washed out. Warmer colors look best when they have warm lights shining on them. Conversely, if you have a cool color scheme, like lots of blues and greens, warm lighting can distort the way the colors are perceived. Cool colors pop and look extra rich when they have cool light illuminating them. So, you want to align your lighting scheme and color scheme. If you have a mix of warm and cool colors, go with the dominant color as your leader, and keep the lighting consistent through out the space.
Next we have to take a look at the general inventory of belongings, items, furniture, and architecture. I can never emphasize enough how important it is to have a clear understanding and written list of the materials and colors in your space. Do I mention this every episode? Probably not, but I should! Even if you are renovating and starting from scratch, it’s so critical to have a list of elements in your space. You may even consider taking pictures of everything and looking at them together. This is true for anything in your space that is already there and will be staying put, like an exposed brick wall or even a lighting fixture. Flooring, ceiling paint, window trim, existing furniture. List it all out. Get a sense of the existing dominant color in the room. Don’t forget, everything has a color, from the wood on your floor to the metal on your door knob. Anything that is overlooked or ignored has the opportunity to stick out or look like a big old accident.
Now, we can dive into creating the color scheme. Once you’ve taken into account the lighting and fixed elements in the space, you can start to begin to craft a vision of color. The biggest mistake I see people make, is that they get fixated on a color or handful of colors before evaluating their space and their stuff. Don’t be this person. This process takes away the random and faltering indecision, the close your eyes and pick one, the ambivalent guessing process; and allows you to play more of a forensic detective. You get to be the color scientist, fact finding and filling in the blanks. It’s not about who likes green and who like burgundy. It’s about what makes the space sing. Let go of any pre-conceived ideas, let go of what you think you know about color, and look at the evidence. If your space doesn’t have a lot of natural light in most areas, keep things warm and light. If you have a ton of existing pieces that have lots of hunter green, develop a color scheme around hunter green. If you have tan carpeting in a rental, bring in more warm tones to support it.
Think about the room in terms of overall percentage of color. We are going to split the space into three buckets. The first bucket should include one to three very similar colors that take up 50-60% of the palette. For most people, this is going to be neutrals, but it doesn’t have to be. You can apply this recipe to any color scheme. Then, select another color that is the boldest, brightest, most eye-catching of your scheme, and dedicate 20-25% of the space to this color. This is your accent color. Within this 20-25%, what really helps a color scheme to look magazine worthy is having multiple shades of the same color. So if you’re doing blue as your accent, don’t just go with the exact same shade of blue everywhere. Try adding a lighter blue, medium, and a darker one. This helps the color feel more organically implemented into the space, it gives the eye some natural variation, so objects don’t look so harsh and sterile. The remaining 20-25% of your room should be a color that contrasts your accent, but in a more muted version. So if we’re going with the blue accent example, the opposite of blue on the color wheel is orange, and a muted version of orange would be in the camel or gold color range. You just want to make sure that the contrasting color isn’t too harsh. And again this can be made up of a few shades of the same color. It’s important to note, the entire palette needs to have similar undertones. Even if there’s contrast between two colors, they should feel like distant cousins from the same family. Always get samples of the colors you want to use, even if they are just paint swatches from the hardware store. Look at your color scheme at different times of day, and give yourself some time to process it before you pull the trigger.
Lastly, we devise a plan for implementation. Meaning, where are the colors occurring, what elements are being highlighted? How are colors grouped together or divided up? This is where Color Strategy really starts to shine. Color should be used as an organizational tool that helps emphasize and activate architectural elements and areas within your space. We spoke about lighting zones before, and now we are going to create color zones layered on top of them. Within any space, creating three distinct zones of color help it to feel organized, balanced, and vibrant. Each zone serves as an intentional, ordered sequence for the human eye. One grabs attention first, then next second, and last (which serves as a natural place of rest for the eye). Now these zones don’t have to be hard lined, they can meander and intermingle with other zones organically, but each zone should correspond to the three color groups from our palette. Pairing multiple surfaces together with similar colors help anchor a space. For instance, painting an accent wall behind a sofa, both of them being similar colors, like dark blue, will anchor that portion of the room. It provides visual weight in the space. You may then have a console on the other side of the room that is the same wood tone as your hardwood flooring. This is a second, more neutral zone. From there, you can have a ceiling paint color, maybe in this case a peachy color, and include this color on the shade of a floor lamp. That’s the third zone. On the other hand, intentional contrasting pieces can add vibrancy, but make sure that one section of color is significantly larger than the other, again providing order and hierarchy so the eye knows where to look first. So if you want to add some bright green to this room we’ve created together, it’s gotta show up in super small doses, like a house plant. I talk about zoning with paint specifically in the episode called “How To Paint A Room”, if you interested you should definitely give that a listen. And remember this strategy can work for any color scheme. So if you want to dive in and do pinks, purples, and gray’s; if you want to integrate rich greens and golds; you can really play around with it so much. Give it a try, plug in some of your favorite colors to this idea and see how it works.
There’s so much more to talk about when it comes to color, and in many ways, this podcast is just getting started. So let me know what your color questions are, you can message me on instagram @softlandingpodcast. Until then, I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
