When it comes to design, one of the most important factors to consider is the colour scheme. Whether you choose pre-set colour plans or spend hours creating colour charts and mood boards for a new room design, your entire home, or even just an area that needs a revamp, you’ll understand that changing the colour in a design can drastically change the major features of the design. However, with hues and shades running into the thousands, and countless rules on which colours should and shouldn’t be paired with others, choosing the ones that will work for you can be tricky. So, how do we go about selecting colour in interior design?

Using a colour wheel

In order to create a strong colour palette, you’ll need to start with the colour wheel. Choosing a colour scheme yourself can be fairly simple based on the way the colour wheel works. Firstly, you’ll want to choose a main colour. This colour will lead the design and be heavily featured in the furniture, decorations and main walls of the room. Then you can choose accent colours, bold colour and secondary accent colours to complement your design, based on their relationship on the colour wheel. Most designs come from choosing a main colour and then two other colours next to the main colour on the colour wheel to create a triadic theme.

Colouring connotations

Sometimes colours are chosen for the connotative benefits they hold. These are most noticeable in the branding of various products, which brings in the connotations of the product or brand through the use of colour. Red, for example, is used by restaurants as it boosts the sympathetic nervous system and increases appetite. This can be seen across McDonald’s, KFC, Lay’s, Kellogg’s and Coca-Cola. Blue, meanwhile, represents security and safety and is used by brands such as Dell, American Express, Ford, GE, and Oral-B in order to stimulate the corporate feel that brings stability, which represents the marketable factors of these products. Green, on the other hand, is associated with wealth and being prosperous, so can be seen in the Mr Green app which offers casino and betting services, in Microsoft Excel, which is closely associated with accounting, BP and luxury car brand, Land Rover.

Warm vs cold

Sometimes rooms have a colour tone themselves. Rooms such as the bathroom may require cool colours such as blues, greys and dark greens in order to reflect the watery activities of the room. Kitchens can focus on hot colours due to the heat of cooking, such as reds and oranges. Basing a design on the type of room can also depend on where you live. If you’re in a hot climate and want to cool down, a cool colour scheme can help induce this. Vice versa, if you want to be cosy and comfortable and it’s cold outside, you’ll want to go for warm colours.

The basis of interior decorating is to form a design around colour. Whether this is a monochromatic design or one that features bold and brash pops of colour, the colour can change the tone of the room, house, or area and should be considered carefully in any interior design.

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