The Interior Design Reference & Specification Book

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THE INTERIOR DESIGN REFERENCE + SPECIFICATION BOOK

Chapter 9: Color

Color remains one of the most challenging and contentious aspects of interior

design. As the painter and color theorist Josef Albers noted, “colors present them-

selves in continuous flux, constantly related to changing neighbors and changing

conditions.”

The application and mixing of color has long been an intense area of study for sci-

entists, artists, and designers. At the same time, color can be an extremely subjec-

tive topic: Everyone has their favorite colors—colors that remind them of a place

or time, or that have specific emotive qualities. The role of color in interior design

resists dissemination into simple rules and ideas, and yet understanding the com-

plexities of using color in a space is fundamental to creating a successful interior.

Thus, interior designers must learn the characteristics of color and how it can act

as a focusing and organizing agent.

FUNDAMENTALS OF COLOR

Color, fundamentally, is the result of the way in which an object absorbs or reflects the visible

light in the color spectrum. An object that the eye perceives as red absorbs every color except

red, which it reflects. White is often described as the reflection of all colors, while black is

described as the absorption of all colors.

Additive and Subtractive Color Mixing

To think about color relative to light and its effect leads to a discussion of how color mixes,

either in additive or subtractive systems. Light that is emitted to create color is often referred

to as additive. Combinations of red, green, and blue primary colors produce other colors; all

three combined produces white. Using this color mix are monitors of all kinds, from computer

screens to television sets to flat-panel display systems. Subtractive color mixing exists in

two forms: combinations of cyan, magenta, and yellow and combinations of red, yellow, and

blue. In these systems, the base colors are added to each other on an opaque medium such

as paper, and their mixing changes the way colors are absorbed and reflected. CMY provides

the model for the printing industry, and RYB is the model for both fine art training and color

theory.

Seeing Color

Color is a physical phenomenon,

and the range of colors stretches

far beyond what the human eye

is capable of perceiving. At either

end of the visible spectrum of light

are the imperceptible infrared and

ultraviolet lights. In between is

“human color space.” This model

is best observed when light is

refracted in a prism and the eye

identifies the resultant color wave-

lengths—whose number is consid-

ered to be around

10 million—as

a rainbow.

infrared

ultraviolet

THEORIES OF COLOR

Many attempts have been made to establish methodologies to evaluate the advantages of

certain color combinations. Very early on, color wheels or color spheres were engaged to visu-

ally communicate the associations and range of colors, and their relationships to each other.

In his

blue, indigo, violet, and red—arranged on a disk in proportionate slices such that the spinning

of the disk would result in the color white. Newton’s objectification of color into a mathemati-

cally understandable system allowed for quantifiable experimentation.

Additive Color

Starting from the primary group of

red, green, and blue, an additive

color model occurs when colored

lights overlap and mix to produce

a visible spectrum. The mixing of

the primaries results in the color

white.

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