Find magic in color associations

Take a relaxed, 30-second, 360-degree glance around you. Let your eyes guide you. Don’t force yourself to look at any one item, image, source of lightness, source of darkness or even moving object. Now close your eyes for a moment to think about what you saw. What do you see in your mind’s eye? Did you notice more than one color or shade of a certain color?

Did a color or texture resonate and draw a feeling or memory from you?

The science and/ or psychology of color is based on just that philosophy, according to the Pantone Color Institute, which introduced its Pantone Matching System in 1963. In doing so, the company set a global standard in color matching that transcends everything from fashion, makeup and furniture to automobiles, wall colors, and textiles.

Colors, according to experts at the Pantone Institute, create associations in the mind of the beholder. And we all know that associations stir emotions.

Chances are, your existing place of residence exhibits some form of color scheme, whether intentional or not. The scheme might be one of your choosing or one of someone else’s. Even the perceived lack of a scheme within a given space is, in fact, a scheme.

Express and receive emotion with color

Think about which spaces you’re happiest at in your current home, both inside and outside. Now ask yourself what colors are repeated in those spaces.

The Pantone Color Institute, which has designated a Pantone Color of the Year since 2000, named Pantone Classic Blue (PANTONE 19-4052) the color of the year for 2020. Announced in early December 2019, Classic Blue was chosen for its simplicity and ability to “bring a sense of peace and tranquility to the human spirit, offering refuge,” according to Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute.

She further explained that the color “encourages us to look beyond the obvious to expand our thinking; challenging us to think more deeply, increase our perspective and open the flow of communication.”

Before you go asking your builder’s design studio to order a gallon per room of their paint vendor’s version of Classic Blue for every room in your new house, remember this: Colors are intended to complement and enrich one another, not to dominate any or all spaces.

The design studio or consultant that works for your builder can help you find color matches in palette groupings to create moods for each space. For one room, you may seek the calm and “relaxed interactions” brought forth by Classic Blue. For another room, you may seek more energy with hints of 2019’s Pantone Color of the Year, Living Coral (PANTONE 16-1546), which was “sociable and spirited” and embodied the human “desire for playful expression.”

Neutrals, nature offer design flexibility

Likewise, many Bay Area builders and design studios suggest adding colors directly from nature, or directly incorporating nature, into a room in your home’s palette. Greens from potted ferns, ficus plants or succulents, for instance, can bring the outdoors into the home.

In fact, the Pantone Color Institute’s Color of the Year for 2017 bore the word “Greenery” in its name. It was selected to reflect people’s desire “to express, explore, experiment and reinvent” and offered “self-assurance and boldness” in “redefining what makes us successful and happy.”

In an accommodation for the brown-thumbed among us, many home improvement stores even sell subtle LED lighting fixtures or tabletop setups to help you keep the life in your greenery.

Go on and explore colors, starting with permanently affixed structures in your new home. Keeping your builder’s timeline in mind, choose colors and complementary palettes that speak to you, enrich you and evoke a full range of positive emotions.

Watch this space in future weeks for further discussions of places where builders and designers are incorporating colors within new homes.