It’s all around you wherever you look. It changes with almost any influence you can think of. Everyone has preferences, and those preferences are influenced in dozens of ways! Some colors “go with anything!” Others (depending who is judging) clash, and should probably never be seen together.
However, the right and wrong of color is an extremely personal judgment. (Once upon a time dark blues and black – together – were never paired!) Color and individuals are definitive partnerships – and extremely difficult to influence away from set tastes and preferences. If you don’t like orange, you don’t like orange! Usually.
In the hands of an Interior Design color expert, even hardline preferences can be quite surprisingly influenced to allow you to consider changes — combinations and uses you never dreamed you might embrace! It’s all in knowing how colors interact with each other – with the environment in which they are applied, and the other factors which influence their perception. It’s a talent and a skill that involves trust and confidence in your Interior design project team. Don’t be afraid to consider unusual possibilities!
It’s not your Interior design project team’s job (or intention) to influence you away from your stated preferences where color use is involved. However, it is their job to achieve the Interior design vision you have in mind. Sometimes the way to that vision may not wind through the color spectrum in the way you believe it will or should!
The power and versatility of color can actually surprise and amaze Interior design clients when used in concert with very specific lighting, unusual combinations of textures, orientation to natural light and surface finishing techniques.
In wall finishes, for instance, a glossy paint will behave very differently than a matte finish when light hits it. In addition to the lighting per se, the kind of lighting brings in additional possibilities for the end impression. The colors involved will change and even “migrate” at the mercy of lighting choices! That is to say, it will travel down one path of influence with one set of surroundings, and behave differently upon its neighboring condition. Therefore, adjacent Interior spaces must receive expert color management in order to be both compatible and individual.
Textured wall papering or fabric covering is affected dramatically according to the light to which it is exposed. Their colors become controlled – or fickle – depending on whether their use is in the hands of a color expert well versed in how color changes by where and what it plays upon.
Highly polished flooring treatments reflect light and dramatically affect every component in that Interior environment. Carpeting, on the other hand, absorbs and helps to mute lighting.
It is easy to see the importance of working with an Interior design team with experience in color management. You know the colors you prefer and want to use. Your Interior design expert knows how to incorporate those colors appropriately into the design vision goals. Favorite colors and color combinations are extremely versatile when in capable, creative hands – and when you share those preferences in the early planning stages of your Interior design project.
Often, color preferences connect to other specific factors such as gardening, flowers, natural settings, weather colors or special memories! Share such connections with your Interior design team – they can provide essential creative insights!
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer in private practice for over 30 years. Boccabella provides Designing to Fit the Vision© in collaboration with writingservice@earthlink.net. To contact him call 707-263-7073; email him at rb@BusinessDesignServices.com or visit www.BusinessDesignServices.com or on Face Book at Business Design Services.
