SELECTING COLORS | FOR INTERIORS
SELECTING COLORS FOR INTERIORS
For the final post in our Impact of Color Series, we’re putting all of the knowledge from our previous posts into practice. This is the moment when color preferences need to be taken into consideration with light sources, space opening techniques, and the particular space in question.
NATURAL LIGHT SOURCES
When considering natural light sources, we first look at the placement of your windows. We have to analyze how light is coming into the room, from which direction, and what part of the interior it will be shining on directly.
It might surprise you to hear that we also have to consider what is outside the windows. Trees and green leaves will affect the cast of light in the room differently than the white wall of a building. An adjacent white wall will impact the cast of light in the room differently than a red one.
Of course, the cast of natural light and even the reflection of natural light into the room will impact how you perceive the colors in your space, but there’s another nuance…
As we mentioned in our first Color Series post, from dawn to dusk, north to south, summer to winter, the cast of natural light changes constantly. Daylight itself is not to be trusted.
DAWN TO DUSK
Morning light is chilly, pale yellow on a sunny day and a flat whitish-gray on a cloudy day. By midday, the light will have shifted to its whitest form, revealing the purest hues of the colors in your space. In late afternoon, the light changes again, developing a rich golden color. At sunset, the light becomes warm, has a reddish-cast, and creates the most shadows.
NORTH TO SOUTH
The direction of natural light impacts perception, too. Light from the north tends to shift an interior’s cast toward the blue end of the spectrum, making the room feel cool. Despite its chilliness, northern daylight is the most reliable for working with color in your space. North-facing interiors are best balanced with color that contains yellow or red-based undertones.
By contrast, southern light creates a yellowish-red cast that makes spaces feel more warm. South-facing interiors feel more harmonious and appealing when blue or green undertones are used.
SUMMER TO WINTER
Changes in latitude and sun exposure also impact the way we perceive color in interior design. For example, cloud cover in northern Europe has conditioned the population to muted colors, which appear soft against a gray sky, whereas Mediterranean inhabitants are accustomed to strong, yellow-based hues that reflect warm sunlight (like the one we get in California).
This same concept can be applied to the seasons. We’re no strangers to fog in SF, and we have our own seasons of cold cloud cover and warm sunshine. So how can we design interiors that account for all of these color variations?
DESIGNING FOR NATURAL LIGHT
As interior designers, our goal is almost always to create more visual space and to play up natural light. How we accomplish this depends on the space in question. We have to decide how we want to modify or enhance the situation.
For example, a smaller room with poor natural lighting isn’t going to feel brighter if we paint it white. It may be wiser to paint the walls in deep, saturated tones and pair it with light furniture to visually push the walls away.
This takes us into the application of color itself. In other words, how we use color to alter our perception of the space.
USING COLOR TO CREATE SPACE PERCEPTION
Like lighting, color drastically affects our perception of a space, including how we perceive weight, temperature, and distance. Research results have varied, especially concerning weight and temperature, but there are some generally accepted conclusions about each.
VISUAL WEIGHT
When it comes to weight, we can’t say that one color is always visually heavier than another. Instead, experts agree that it’s the brightness and saturation of a color that impacts our perception. The more saturated the color of an object, the more visual weight and presence it has.
PERCEIVED TEMPERATURE
When discussing temperature perception, the human association of red with warmth and blue with coolness is widely accepted. (This is a psychological perception, not a physiological one.) That said, neither is required to make a space feel warm or cool.
In fact, color experts claim that designing a space with a sense of comfort increases the perceived feeling of warmth.
PERCEIVED DISTANCE
Lastly, we can use color to influence our perception of the size of a space, including the distance of walls, ceilings, and objects. This is perhaps the most important part of spatial design.
First, bright and saturated colors appear nearer while darker, muted tones tend to appear further away. The second nuance, however, is contrast. Just as our perception of a single color is influenced by the other colors around it, so too is our perception of visual distance.
Colors with stark contrast appear closer. For example, dark ceilings with light walls will look heavier and therefore lower. On the other hand, colors that blend will visually recede. The example we shared before with the darker walls and lighter furniture — extreme contrast (black vs. white) would not be effective at opening up the space, but subtle contrast could.
The famous Pavillon Le Corbusier designed in 1967 in Zurich, Switzerland (source)
COLOR IN INTERIORS
As you can see from this 6-part series, color is an essential aspect of creating the home you most want to live in and experience, but many variables must be considered and addressed to get it just right.
References:
Color: The Secret Influence by Cherie Fehrman and Kenneth Fehrman