Is colour a designer’s most important tool?

This article first appeared in Mix Interiors #233

Words and moderated by: Harry McKinley

Colour speaks to culture and identity

“I’m from Venezuela, so I feel like I see colour completely differently,” opened M Moser’s Mariana Anelli, neatly spotlighting the role that culture and even geography can play in the way we individually respond to, and understand, colour. For Anelli, her South American origin means a propensity for brighter, more joyful hues – emblematic of Venezuela’s rich design landscape, which fuses Spanish, African and indigenous influences.

For Rachel Basha-Franklin, founder and principal director of the eponymous design studio, the same ethos is evidenced in her own antipodean background. “Being from Australia, I see how place plays an important role in defining colour in design: I think of Melbourne as a more Scandinavian colour palette, then get to Sydney and it’s a little brighter; in Queensland, it’s floral shirts all around. It’s partly culture and partly informed by surroundings, where the quality of light plays a role. It’s why we see such a massive difference in colour use between countries; tropical countries fairly universally using bright colours, for example.”

Exploring colour through the context of national borders may, on the surface, seem simplistic, but this opening gambit highlighted colour’s immense power to weave stories and root projects in their surroundings – when deployed thoughtfully and effectively.

“This understanding is crucial because it’s how we build narrative and we use colour a lot this way as a studio,” continued Basha-Franklin, citing a recent project in which colour was used to evoke the history of the space and connect to the community, including integrating the tones of a nearby market – its stalls and bags. “It creates a logic and meaning that resonates with those using the spaces; building a story that they will remember.”

“The good thing about understanding these cultural markers,” continued Conran and Partners’s Simon Kincaid, “is that it allows us to sidestep the clichés. Knowing that red is lucky in China doesn’t mean we should do everything in that colour. That knowledge also allows us to also challenge preconceptions, test the culture a bit and do something different as designers.”

Deploying colour effectively requires bravery

As with all design, personal taste is an inescapable factor that studios, clients and manufacturers must grapple with, in creating spaces that are fit for purpose and which ultimately appeal to their users. But our assembled experts agree that the ‘safe’ path is rarely best – the ostensibly inoffensive likely to translate into the forgettable and unaffecting. Designers, then, must muster some bravery in using colour purposefully and boldly.

“For us, every project is as vibrant and bright as we can make it,” noted SODA Studio’s Charlotte Conroy, “but that does require pushing clients; it means rationalising those choices, in terms of how we conceive spaces for them individually.”

“Yet not every client wants to be challenged,” continued Anelli, emphasising the tussle between creative ambition and the realities and hierarchies of project decision making. “We try to push where  we can, but it’s also about picking your battles.”

It’s here there’s room to educate on colour use as pragmatic and objective-driven, more than merely aesthetic. As BGY’s Natalie Thomson attested, “there’s marketability and commerciality that we have to be sensitive of. We have to think about somebody walking into a space  and being able to see themselves in that space. So colour has to be chosen in a way that is readable or relatable. Colour might divide or it might conquer, but if a space looks like every other space, then it isn’t memorable and it lacks identity; if a space doesn’t evoke emotion, then it’s also less marketable.” It’s this framing of colour application that can often lead to more meaningful and productive conversations with clients,  the table agreed. In a competitive landscape, it’s commercially reasonable to suggest that appealing more innately to a smaller group is more viable than running the risk of mass indifference.

But risk is not a term, regardless of context, that many clients respond positively to, and there was also consensus that in the cut and thrust world of commercial interiors – faced with tight deadlines and the need to maintain constructive relationships – many studios  will opt for the tried-and-tested – the comfortable. The solution?  Working processes that allow for experimentation and ‘play’, while mitigating said risk. AI was flagged  as potentially revolutionary in this respect, offering the opportunity to visualise easily adaptable, hyper-realistic environments using only carefully selected inputs – a chance to see what works and what  doesn’t without a significant outlay in time or cost.

“Although I don’t agree that AI is the answer,” countered Conroy. “Every single project is different and every client is different. We  need to be challenging ourselves as designers to source inspiration from further afield and make time for the creative process if we want genuine authenticity. That’s good design and good design will always show through.”

Colour is nuanced, it isn’t just about brights

“There’s no such thing as ‘neutral’ colour,” opined colour expert Karen Haller, noting that when we discuss how colour is used in spaces, we invariably focus on the audacious. “Every colour will evoke an emotional reaction. Sometimes colour is softer or not as noticeable, like turning the radio down from  a design perspective. Other times it’s bright and, on the other end of the spectrum then, like turning the radio right up. But if we can see it, it’s a colour, and often our response to it, be it stimulating or soothing, is based on saturation.”

The table rallied around the notion that understanding colour beyond the ‘brights’ – in all of its mild to wild variations – is central to successful design, as it allows for variation of purpose and experience.

Kincaid nodded to a recent BTR project in London’s King’s Cross, where colour was central to signposting how different spaces were to be used. “In the common areas we used a lot of natural finishes with an intentional lack of vibrancy, which encourages residents to spend a lot of time there – working or relaxing. The colour isn’t intrusive. But in areas where those residents might be spending less time – the gym, the screening room, the dining room – we used really saturated colours to bring a very curated sense of energy.

That’s really a theme in our work: a controlled use of colour, tone and materiality to denote something, to communicate how to behave in certain environments.”

Applying colour psychology is good design business

“A lot of the time designers feel that colour is selected intuitively,” expressed Haller. “But increasingly clients are asking for more than that, and it’s the piece of the puzzle that I frequently see is still missing. Colour is emotion and it will always create a behaviour – it’s psychological and it’s measurably physiological. So it’s not just about picking colour, it’s picking the right colours, in the right combination and proportion, to elicit the behaviours that you’re looking  for. To suggest it’s only intuitive or aesthetic as designers isn’t giving clients enough of what they need anymore, as a rationale.”

As testament, Thomson highlighted her work on the UK’s largest homelessness resource centre, where she worked with colour,  by necessity, in a psychologically informed way. “It was a really interesting way of researching and applying colours that enabled us to present them to the client and say, ‘we chose this colour for this tangible reason’ and to put forward the case, because those choices were informed by something the client could understand.”

Colour can speak to design values such as inclusivity and sustainability

Throughout the discussion, talk regularly coalesced around the principal that colour and materiality walk hand-in-hand – that our perception of colour is undoubtedly informed by tactility and texture. But more than that, that colour plays an increasingly crucial role  in translating values into design practice, from inclusivity to sustainability.

“As we get older, we lose our ability to see colour quite as strongly,” explained Impact Acoustic’s Sven Erni, “with our visual range dropping by 30 to 40 percent according to some studies. Choosing brighter colours in the context of care  homes, for example, actually allows residents to better engage with and find a connection to their environment. We know that colour plays an outsized role when it comes to  neurodiversity, also. So considering colour allows designers to create with more empathy and devise spaces built around diverse needs.”

“Which also speaks to longevity,” continued Kincaid. “Colour within materiality equally relates to a kind of permanence, especially if drawn from context and location – classic or historic combinations something that will last. We just need these  to be developed in a sustainable,  recyclable or reusable way.”

With these requirements in mind, Impact Acoustic worked with a colour specialist on the development of its recent Cotton product, Erni noted – a palette conceived so that any combination of pieces can work harmoniously together, milled in Verona and using natural earth pigments.

“In the end what this discussion has shown us,” Anelli concluded, “is just how much colour ties all of the elements of design together: creating purposeful spaces, commercial spaces, inclusive spaces and long lasting, sustainable spaces. It’s at the heart of conscious design.”