Imi Design Studio Explains Color Coordinating Home Design

I'm Pat, that's Anita, and Anita happens to be in a profession that is involved with beauty and art and today we're going to be talking about color with Anita Lang. Founder and principle designer at IMI Design Studio of Scottsdale Arizona. Welcome Back. Thank you Pat. Should we not just, when we're planning color in our home, our apartment, our condo, should we just depend on the colors that we like? That's a good place to start. I mean automatically my favorite color is blue so lets make blue rooms. Well, that's a really good place to start is to know what colors you respond to. What I love about color, it's very powerful. It's a way to really manipulate your environment, usually not that expensive, because anybody can pretty much afford a bucket of paint, right. So it's a really good way to really leave who your are, a mark on your space. You want to think a little bit about how you're going to use the color because it is so influential on a space that you want to use it appropriately. Blue is a great color, it's one of the favorite colors of a lot of people. But you also have to be careful because blue in the wrong space can really make a space kinda, could be depressing and dark, and kind of moody. If that's not what you want to go for then you might want to give a little consideration of how to use that blue in that space. I would rather not bring depressing, dark, and moody into the house. No, sometimes not. But, we have examples of course that you've provided from IMI Design of how to use color effectively. Boy, that's emotional! Yes, isn't it? So I'm going to give you some examples of the different major colors and how to use them in a space. So this is red of course, one of the strongest colors to work with. Here I used a lot of red, which is not very typical. In order to use it you really have to think about how you're going to proportion it in a space, make sure it's grounded with other very rich textual materials like that slate that's in the background. Red is very energetic so it's a great color to use in the kitchen. It stimulates the appetite. Here it is in a dining room space. A totally different effect because it's used now in an old world setting, but you can see we used it with more texture in the Venetian plaster that's on the walls. Very dynamic for a candle lit dining room space. Pink, so kind of the little sister of red. People think of it as being very feminine. What about mixing things? Like pink and red. In the red family, is it a good idea? It's an excellent idea. you have less contrast that way and you can really get an interesting effect by it. Here we took the red and mixed it with yellow for a restaurant space. You'll see yellow and red used a lot in restaurants. That would be a bit busy for a home. Absolutely, Yellow's a great color. And it's interesting that a lot of people don't like yellow. I'm in love with it. It works so great with other tones. Like here the dark floor and then you see the art work on the wall. It adds a lot of brightness so in a dark space it's fantastic. It's optimistic. Here's your favorite color, so blue. This one's a spa blue. Now this one actually has a physical response. Your body is going to feel much more relaxed in it. It brings your blood pressure down so it's really interesting how blue will effect those. You contend that emotions are attached to colors right? Absolutely, there's a physical response, there's an emotional response, and there's a psychological response. I mean we all grew up with certain colors related to something. I mean if I would say yellow and black, like the colors behind you, a lot of people think "bee" "bumble bee". If we throw out red we think "fire engine". And that's very cultural of what color symbolizes to us. Is white a safe avenue to walk down to make the walls colorless and then pick up colors with your art work and so on? Absolutely it's a great way to administer color in the space . A lot of people prefer neutrals. We have a few more. the blue, so in fact I have one example of white in here. I think it's towards the end. I'm going to walk you through and then get to that. We're at green. Green is the most favorite color that I've noticed in my own clients and in fact there's studies that have been done that 76-80% of people do like green. And the reason for that is because of the natural connection. Green is so in the out doors, in nature, that it creates a very relaxing response for us. Here we have fuchsia and purple. Very opulent colors. Very seductive colors. Here's the neutral, so in talking to your point, you see the warm neutrals and the grays. People very often want to work with a warm neutral background and then pop color against it. Here the white, see it pops the colors. I love white because it reflects all color. And black of course that absorbs all color. High contrast in that. You can already really manipulate a space and then you can accent with the colors that you enjoy. Does that only work with contemporary design? No, you can do that in a traditional setting as well. Thank you so much for wearing green particularly an attractive outfit with an attractive green, but then again we're both big Ireland fans. Exactly. Anita Lang. Anita brings color into your life and so does the morning scramble every so often. IMI Design Studio | Scottsdale Interior Design | Home Design