Colour me clever

When workers in a blue office complained that it was always cold, the walls were repainted a warm peach. Guess what? Without changing the ambient temperature everyone was suddenly warmer. True story.

At Taylor & Grace we’re big fans of colour and it’s for a good reason. As well as changing our perception of the temperature, colours can excite us, tranquilise us, stimulate our appetites (that’s why Maccas uses oranges and reds) and lots more – it’s called chromo dynamics. If you want to know more check out this great article on the Pantone website.

We pay a lot of attention to colour in the design development process because of the big role it plays in the way consumers perceive and react to your brand. Notwithstanding cultural differences, some reactions to colour are universal. For example, the human eye sees warm colours before cool ones.

Look at these examples from the Jamie Oliver range “Jme” and think about this:

—Red, yellow and orange generally stimulate; blue, green and violet generally calm

—We associate certain colours with certain experiences, eg. orange with fire, turquoise with the sea.

—Red makes us take more risks; blue helps us to be more considered in our choices (not for nothing is Las Vegas the city of red neon!)

Being clever with colour is an essential contributor to design success.

Thanks to Lovely package and Pearlfisher for the images.