Academic design project- Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts
With the festivities of December behind us, the cold, gray month of January can be a little depressing. Fortunately the new year always brings predictions of the hot new colors that will influence the fashion and design worlds. And now there are so many tools and resources to help you bring some vibrant color into your life!
Pantone weighs in with their fashion color preview for Spring 2012, a melange of hues both bright and subdued, from Cockatoo and Margarita to Tangerine Tango (Pantone’s newest Color of the Year) and Sodalite Blue.
“Consumers look to spring for renewed energy, optimism and the promise of a brighter day,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “They have learned how color can help them alter a mood and provide the vitality and enthusiasm that enables them to experiment with new looks and color combinations.”
Pantone is in the business of color matching, but you don’t have to pay $650 for one of their fancy color matching machines. Just check out this Sherwin Williams app that does the same thing for free! ColorSnap allows you to use your smart phone to match real-world colors with paint colors. You can find coordinating colors, create custom palettes, search, browse, adjust, and even share colors. This could be a really helpful tool for so many different jobs.
For a beautiful celebration of color, check out Benjamin Moore’s color stories feature, which draws inspiration from photographs of the world around us.
Benjamin Moore color stories
In addition to the color stories feature, Benjamin Moore also has a really neat tool called the Personal Color Viewer that allows you to test drive colors by applying them to the photo of an interior. You can even upload your own photos to get a really good idea of what you’re looking for in a paint color.
Architecture fans will love PPG’s Fallingwater collection, a selection of paint colors meticulously matched to those in the famous home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The colors, much like the house, are an interpretation of the beauty of nature, with hues ranging from red and gold to brown and yellow-green.
We enjoy using bright color in our designs here at Leslie Saul & Associates, and we especially love playing with the interactions between colors in our interior design work. It’s amazing how much different a color can look depending on what’s around it. In fact, as you can see from our super cool logo, Leslie’s favorite color is a purple square with an orange dot! What’s your personal color philosophy- bright and bold, subtle and sophisticated, or maybe something in between?
