Design Process: Color Palette Selection
- Becky Bonnell
- May 26, 2022
- 1 min read
Video Transcription
Hello friends. Happy Wednesday.
I am Becky Bonnell with Lykke Haven Design which is a purpose-driven interior design company in Grand Rapids and West Michigan and we create spaces with intention, mission, and connection and today, I'm so excited to nerd out with you on color palette and how you start to select colors for your room.
This week, we have been diving into the design process. The big, scary design process and where do we start when we finally select that room that we want to begin with. We have talked about how we run through our empathy exercises. What do we do in this space? What do we want to feel? What are our current thoughts? And where are those gaps? And we talked about how from our empathy exercises, we come to this intention statement or this summary of our intentions for the room. Which then guide our mood board. Where we're selecting pictures to help bring those words to life. Not necessarily pictures of stuff that's going to go in the space but pictures really that are giving images to the intentions of what you want to feel. and then from there, getting further inspiration and getting into our creativity zone.
We talked a lot about like, how do you get in your zone? What is your zone? Because that way, if we're in our zone, we're not spinning our wheels, we're able to design. We followed that with yesterday, we talked about inspiration. Where do you get inspiration? You have your mood board which has started some inspiration but how do you dive deeper into that? And where do you look? How do you capture that and cultivate that? And today, we're going to get more into the science and data side of the design process. Because our next step is to define what our color palette is going to be. This is where, I'll be honest as an engineer, I start to tune into the data-driven side of my brain and I love to capture all the information while deciding how to choose the perfect color for the customer and so I'm going to go over a lot of information today and it's really just to arm you. I don't want it to overwhelm you.
At the end, I'll give an example which I hope will bring it all together and create a sense of ease about it, but I wanted to be able to arm you with the information that we use as designers in selecting the color palette. You can go look at all of these color wheels and get very much overwhelmed with all the different selections, and I don't want you guys to start there. Let's take a step back. Let's get out of the overwhelm. There are three important things to consider when you're figuring out what that main color at least is going to be for your room. First, is your intention or your mood for the room will help drive you to a specific range of colors and then we start tuning those in based off of what kind of light is reflecting into the space and what colors may be reflecting into the space from your outside of your home. Then, the third thing that we are tuning in even further is what kind of tone do you want to set for the space? So, three things we're looking at when it comes to color palette. It's your mood and intention which is the first one. What is the light and the reflection into the space? And then what is the tone that you want to set for the room? And we're going to go through each of those with the information of how those help define your color palette.
The first is your mood or intention for the space, and we talked about this previously. There has been data and studies done of how the feelings, what feelings are reflected depending on what color a room is. Different colors drive different feelings and moods. We know this from even if you've taken any branding classes or even just understood branding, right? Companies choose specific colors because they want you to feel a certain way about their brand and the personality of their brand. This works the same with your house. Imagine the different feelings you have if you walk into, for instance, a blue room versus even a yellow room. They're on opposite sides of the spectrum and you feel different things. So, what do different colors, what are those moods or feelings, different colors drive? Typically, if you are looking at a red space in your room, red usually means a little bit more excitement. It is passion. It's romantic. The really excited view of the feelings side. If you have orange, you're talking a little bit like this fun color and this vibrancy. Then it also can turn if you do a deeper color to that warmth feeling. Then, as you move through the spectrum, you're talking yellows. This is warmth, happiness, a lot of dining room sometimes are yellow in tone because it drives to just want to come together and have food. That is another reason. Sometimes people will find yellow in let's say cafeterias or a yellow toned tan for instance. It really dries that warmth and connection piece. Then greens, the nature side of green, right? The green of the tree. So, it really hones in on the nature. This freshness that it brings rejuvenation and healing are some of the words that come to mind when you choose green. Moving through to blue, this is more of a color of trust. I think of blue as kind of this serenity, this calm. It's the same color as the sky and this calming fact that comes over you. A lot of spas will choose the blue, bathrooms for instance. It's just a serenity feel that it gives. Then purples. It's more of a spiritual side. There's creativity. It is a color of royalty and sophistication if you will. So, those are some of the feelings that are driven just by the color and then you have your whites which, depending on the tone of the white, a white in it of itself is more of a pureness to the room. Calming, clean, just cut and dry a lot of modern, for instance, rooms will have white on their walls. Just this pure, clean look to the space.
And so, the first thing is look back to is your intention statement. Look back to that mood board. What are some of the colors that come out of your mood board? I explained a tool called Canva which is a free tool to use. If you put, let's say five on a board in Canva, it will show you the color palettes from each of those pictures and you can start there. What are those colors that are drawn out of those pictures that you chose specifically to bring the intention statement to life and start there? What are some of those words that you pulled out? What color matches those words? And you're just choosing, the specific hue if you will, the pure color at this point. You're not choosing, is it a light or is it dark quite yet? You're just choosing, where do I want to start? Do I want to start in the white family? Do I want to start in more of a a yellow or tan? Do I want to go to blue? You're really just honing in on where you want to start your color palette based off of the intentions that you want for the space. And this doesn't necessarily have to be your wall color. This be maybe it's a big piece of furniture that you want to base the space off of or have center in the space. Most times, it is the main color of the room.
Where do you want to start? What do you want this room to feel like? That main color of your space. Looking back to our intention statement and mood board as our guiding map. What are the words that we want to pull out and then what colors match those words? That's the first place you start with a color palette. Do not go to this color wheel and open it up and be overwhelmed by the colors. Start with your guiding map and then understand how different colors bring about different feelings for people.
Then as we dig deeper and tune in our color selection, we start to understand what light is reflected into the room and what outside environment is reflected into space. This is our light and reflection that really can change a color. If you choose a white, it will look different if you have a north-facing window versus a south-facing window for instance. The light that is reflected into the space will change that color ever so slight depending on the undertones. Then the same with what you are reflecting in, you know, a suburb with lots of houses or the city. Or are you reflecting in the green from the woods for instance? It will change the color that you select depending on what is being reflected into the space. So how does it change? First understand where your windows are facing. What kind of light are you bringing into the space? That's where to start.
If you have a north facing light for instance, a lot of the north-facing light, it doesn't get a lot of the sun. It'll be a little bit darker. It really brings out the cooler, harsher color because it is reflecting the blue of the sky for the most part. It's really great for dramatic colors. It really brings out the blue. So, if you want more of a dramatic room, think of your deep teals for instance or purples even. It'll bring out the blue undertone of those colors really well and can make for a very intimate space. If you want a lighter room, choosing a white is good but making sure that it has more towards the yellow side or red as the base because it will counteract the blue. If you look at the color spectrum, blue and red are on opposite sides. So, if it's reflecting blue into the space, you really want to counteract that blue to make it a white by making sure that it's a white with a red or yellow undertone and it'll cancel each other out and give you that pure white color you're looking for.
If you have south-facing windows, we all know these reflect in a lot of light. They give that golden tone into the space. A lot of the sun comes in and so you're really going to choose softer colors because a lot of light is coming in. So, you can choose colors that bounce off that light a lot more. So, let's say you want this lightness to this space, use a soft blue. So, as we said blue, and yellow kind of in a way cancelled each other out. It cancels out that golden color and really brings a softness to the space. Then if you want rich, warming colors, as the yellow is already coming into the space, choosing even a white with more of a golden undertone. So, like an ivory. It'll really keep that space warming. If that's the intention that you want to go for. These rooms, as we know from just reflecting the light, feel a bright cheeriness to them, just due to the fact that they do get a lot of the sunlight for most of the day.
Then as we move, east and west. The sun rises in the east, so you'll get that sun in the morning. These have more of that cooler, bright with the morning light that comes in and then as it sets in the west, the west side facing windows really get that warming glow of a sunset. So, if you know any photographers, If they want to take morning pictures, there's a little bit more of a blue to their pictures versus a golden color of a sunset picture. So, you're really playing with these different lights into the same space. If it has different light coming in, your color will change. So, a lot like the north and south-facing windows. The east room gets cooler and bright from the morning and then becomes muted and darker during the day as the sun progresses to set. These colors will bring forth like I said, the blue aspect of the light and it will feel really bright and airy in the morning and then, get this intimate feel at night. Then, opposite with the west facing. This is where the sun sets. You're going to get that golden tone. So, really going with maybe even a tone that fits that. Like a red or an orange or an ivory if you will, a neutral, gray, even. You'll really feel the intimacy of those colors. If you want to balance out the golden tone of the sun, the yellow and the red, then making sure that you choose something that is more blue or green to counteract the golden sunset.
That was a lot of information on just how the sunlight and how it reflects and can change the color, depending on how much sun comes in, when the sun comes in, and what is the tone of the sunlight coming in. So, make sure you know which way your windows are facing because if you are choosing a color thinking it's going to be light and bright and airy because it's something you saw on Instagram. This light blue airy space. Well, if you don't have south-facing windows, it may seem a little darker than you intended it for. So, make sure that you just understand which way your windows are facing and how that can change the color. You're tuning in the already selected color from the first part of this and just tuning it in maybe choosing one towards one side of the spectrum, maybe towards the red side versus the blue side of the spectrum. Then, tuning in as you're looking at what is surrounding this room on the outside of the house. For us, we live in the woods. So, we have a lot of green reflecting in our space. So, understanding how that reflection can really play up the color or maybe not make it look so good. If we even pick a green color for our room, it's going to reflect even deeper of a green. If you live in a suburb, if you're surrounded, let's say by brown houses, it's going to reflect that brown into the space or in the city, reflecting that more gray in, so it'll have that gray undercast and usually a lower light because you're blocking the sun with buildings. Really taking note; it's not anything to get stuck on, I would say, but really just understanding what the light reflecting in is so that way you can tune in that color a little bit more. Tweaking it in as you are selecting your color palette.
Then the final third factor is tone. It's a little bit like our intentions, but it's the tone that we want. Do we want like a fun-ness or an intimate color? So, as I was saying earlier, your base color, let's say, red. You chose red, that's called the hue. So, that's your base color that you selected based off of the intentions you want for the space and now, you can change the tone of that red by doing different things with it. If you want to create a lightness to the space, what do you think you add? You add a white to it. So, you tend to go to the lighter colors. If you want to add a lightness to it, you add white to red and it starts to get a little bit of that lightness factor. If you want a more intimate, it's opposite. You add black or even like a dark brown color and you start to go into the more intimate color of the hue. So, add white for a lightness. If you want a more intimate room, go for the darker color. And then, you can change the intensity. Do you want a brighter mood to it? You would have that more intense, that pure hue instead of adding too much. If you want more of a calming aspect of it, a more muted color, this calming factor to it. You honestly add the opposite of the spectrum. So, if you choose a red, you're actually adding green to the red to make it muted in color. I know it seems like really opposite and kind of odd, but that's what you do. So, if you want, let's say, an intimate red room for instance, you're going to add some of that black or dark brown to make it more intimate and then, you're actually going to add a little bit of a dark green to mute the color. You then have this muted, dark, red color for this intimate space.
One of the things I liked to do when I was starting to learn about all these colors and how they can change versus what I put with them, I broke out my kids paint set. I urge you to do the same. Play around with it. Start with the pure color, a red, or green, or blue, and start adding a little white to it. See how that changes it. Add dark brown to one. Add black to another to see the difference in what those colors do. Then changing with how it looks when you mute it by adding the opposite color of the color spectrum. So, if it's red, you're adding green for instance. If you have a blue, you could add red or you could add orange. You're looking at your color wheel which you can find online and just start playing around with colors. It's really fun. I know even for our girls room, they like purple and I'm kind of like it's not exactly the right tone. So, I'm already starting to play around. I want to make it a little bit more muted. So, I'm looking at this pink color and I'm going to just honestly buy little samples and start mixing and seeing what we can create. Sometimes, you may not find the color you really want in the rolodex of colors and you start having fun. I don't recommend that. I would recommend just taking a color from the color wheel. Once you can hone in on the hue or the pure color you want, you can start to go to one side of the color wheel versus the other side as you're starting to understand what light is being reflected in and what tone am I really going to. You can then go up and down on the one strip. So, if we pick one here of the blues, as you go up, you're getting lighter, you're adding that white and then as you go down, you're getting more intimate, adding a darker color. So, what kind of tone are you setting? You'll know where to look on this color spectrum. Then, what light is being reflected, that's when you start going to one side or the other. If you go towards more of the green or if you go more towards the side with the red. You're going this direction versus the other direction as your honing in on your color.
As I said, this was a very information-packed, data-packed on how you select your color palette and I don't want to overwhelm you. So, I'm going to give you an example of what we did for our home and how we started honing in on the color that we selected. For our living room, for instance, we have south-facing windows, and then we also have west facing windows that reflect in the woods. We have a large picture window that's west facing that is reflecting in the woods and then we have the south-facing windows on one side that reflect a lot of sun. We knew that we wanted this calming sense for our living room. A lot of life happens in the living room and we knew we wanted a big family. So, when we are choosing this color, I wanted something that created a calmness in the chaos that I knew was going to happen or the lot of life we're going to have in our room. I knew from just understanding that we wanted something calm and more peaceful that we're either going to go with more of a green or a blue and just thinking about a little bit further, we tended more towards a blue color just with the thought of the sky and being part of nature. We wanted to choose blue; that was our hue. That was our base color. We choose blue. based off of the intentions that we had for the space. Then you start to tweak it. So, as I said, we have the light that is being reflected in from the south-facing windows and the west-facing windows and then, the woods, the green reflecting in from the trees that we live around. We started understanding what that light was. We wanted a very soft feel. So, we choose a cooler blue so that it really brings out that cool blue because the west-facing windows, if you remember, really reflect in the sky, the blue. If you want to play that up more, choosing a cool color especially with the green reflecting in as well and then the brightness of the south. We wanted a really light, cool blue. We tended towards going towards like a gray or green instead of going more to the red side of the spectrum. And then from there, we wanted to change the tone and so, since we wanted to stay soft, we just went all the way up, we lightened it up, we wanted a light breath to the space. So, we lightened it up and then, in fact, the color that we ended up with, honestly, it was called a gray. It's called silver bells is what we ended up with from Benjamin Moore and it's this really, really soft, light, blue color. If you look on sample underneath just normal light, it looks gray but we knew from the reflection of the west windows with all that blue that the blue is really going to get pulled out of that.
And so, as I said, we start with our intention. That's where you start. That is the most important thing is, what are your intentions for the space and choosing a color that brings those feelings into the space. And then just tweaking it ever so slightly based off of what's reflecting and the tone that you want in the space. You're just tweaking at that point but you have the base color, the hue, that you want based off of your intentions and your mood. That's the place to start and to test it with the reflection because it's hard to remember, wait, what did she say reflected into this space with this side window versus this side window and what does it do? You can always find that stuff again online. Send me questions if you want. Honestly, what I do too is I will get a couple colors as I start to narrow things out. I'll get a couple of the colors that I I'm thinking for the space. And then go get some plywood and have it cut down a little bit there and you paint the plywood sheets. Making sure that you get a good primer down and then your you are painting that color on a plywood sheet. The reason we do this instead of painting the walls is because then you can move it around the space depending on the light and then move it throughout the day depending on how what's getting reflected in at what time of day. Making sure that it fits all the different lights. It's a bigger sample. You can cut them to be two by two and then you'll get a lot of sheets out of one sheet of plywood or you can cut it a little bit bigger if you want to. They're easy to move around and you can move them throughout the day to see how the color is reflecting and to see if it's what you want before you're actually painting the walls.
The really cool thing about paint? There are two things about paint that I love the most. It's really easy and a cheaper option to do to update a space. Then second, it really sets the mood and your intention for the space. Because color drives so many feelings, specific feelings into the room and that's the base of where your intentions come from. That's why I love to talk color.
I wanted to arm you guys with all the information as you're selecting your color palette because I know it can be overwhelming. And this is honestly why part of the reason designers exist, right? Choices and selections can be so overwhelming, and we understand that and we want to help bring you into the process as much as you want. I, like I said, nerd out on information. Some of my clients could care less and want me to select what I think is best. But if you love to understand the information, understand the data, use this as background information, that's what I'm here to share with you and how I start my color palette. It's starting with your mood and intention and then tweaking with the reflection, the light, and your tone.
Your action step today is looking at your intention statement and your mood board for the room that you selected. I hope you guys all had a chance to run through empathy exercises and to really hone in on the space that you want to choose for your room. To go through design process with as an example. Then, you're looking at those pictures from your mood board and you're looking at the words from your intention summary or your intention statement and I want you to just start playing around with colors. What is going to be that base color family that you're going to go with? Then, start to just have fun with some colors. Break out the kid’s paint set to understand colors a little bit better. Go to the paint store, get a couple samples and some boards and bring it home to start to figure out what is going to be that main color in your room. What fits your family the best? That's your action step. I hope you've been able to choose a room, so you can do these exercises with it. That way, you can ask me questions along the way. I would love to help as we're tuning in the design for your room.
And as always. I would love to hear your comments. Please comment on the video what you liked best. What you learned that was something new. Then as always, share with your friends. I am so excited to grow this community to help you guys understand the design process, little aspects of the design process before we get into tips for different rooms. So please share. I would love to grow our community and help each other out in all of this. And I hope guys have a happy Wednesday.
Tomorrow, we're going to be talking more about how do you define the different zones for your room. How do you create a room or a home that serves you and what does that look like before we start into floor plans. So, join me tomorrow, one o'clock or catch the replay. I’m so excited to just bring you into this design process with me.
Have a great day!
Lykke Haven Design is a full service, purpose-driven interior design firm serving clients in West Michigan. We work with clients from Ada, to Grand Rapids, to Holland (and the occasional out of state). Our mission is to create Intentional Interiors curated with a Meaningful Mission that Cultivate Connection. We do this through a process driven by Human-Centered Design. We would love to discuss your next project and how we can help.
Please check out our services to learn more!
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