What does colour mean for your products?

In addition to networking, Flanders Flooring Days is all about new information and inspiration, both from the companies participating and through seminars. Colour authority Judith Van Vliet will be returning for next year’s event. Don’t expect her to simply name a trending colour, give a couple of generic tips and leave it at that. Judith is passionate about colours, what they mean to people and how they work with different materials. Sustainability, culture, psychology and taste all combined in a single colour philosophy. Don't miss her seminar at the fourth edition of Flanders Flooring Days.

Asked exactly what she does, Judith Van Vliet explains: “I help clients with colour. Through my company, The Color Authority, I provide companies with advice about colours and what they communicate. That's all connected to culture and psychology. So it can help you to convey your message at a deeper level. I pick out trending colours, put together colour charts and research the way colour works with various materials. How a colour appears on a Pantone chart can be quite different to how it looks as part of your end product.”

An introduction to colour theory

Judith shares her vision through her podcast, The Color Authority, and as a speaker at industry events, like Milan Design Week. In 2024, she delivered her seminar ‘Do you speak colour?’ at the third edition of Flanders Flooring Days. “I’m always struck by the way people seem afraid of colour. So I want to give them a sense of how personal colour is. I often start my seminars by asking people to think about the colour red. Everyone sees a different shade in their mind’s eye, based on their past, context and culture.”

Judith takes her audience on a journey through the colour family, explaining what those different shades of various colours represent. Through an exploration of the history of colours, she demonstrates to her audience just how complex choosing the perfect colour for their brand and products can be. “The context in which a colour will be used is crucial too. Think of the warm colours you see in Spain. They appear very dull under the light in Belgium. Choosing the right colours involves so much more than just following trends and using the colour of the year in your collection. People don't understand how colour works. That's where I come in, explaining colour theory and emphasising the importance of the material you’re intending to use the colour for.”

A colourful network

Colour theory, trends and the impact of sustainability on colours are just a few of the themes that will be covered as part of Judith’s talk at the next edition of Flanders Flooring Days.

Do you speak color?

“What is color?” is the question I have asked each and every guest on my podcast ‘The Color AuthorityTM’ over the past three seasons. The answers to this question have been many but intriguingly enough most answered that color is life.

Color is many things indeed and when we look at color from a scientific point of view we tend to talk about color in terms of light – it has certain wavelengths in it, and the different mixture of wavelengths is what we perceive as color. Yet each and everyone of us interprets color differently so instead of seeing color in a physical object, it is about the story that our brains tell ourselves about what we think the color means. Does this sound mysterious to you? That is why color is often described often as a secret language that once deciphered, teaches you many things about life, yourself and others. We all communicate in color whether we are aware of it or not and once you tune into the colors you surround yourself with and those of others, the way you experience life may change.

The very unfortunate fact however is that our lives have become less colorful over the years. A recent study in the United Kingdom has showed how the colors grey, black and whites made up for about 15 percent of colors around 1800 whereas now they make up for over 50 percent of colors used in our direct environments. Is this because we are afraid to use color or is it because we do not speak color very well? I personally believe the answer lays merely in the latter. Throughout my professional and personal experience I saw that color is joy, passion, love, simply said; color is emotion and thus a powerful tool to enhance our living. But how can you bring color into your life and select above all, the right color?

One of the first questions to ask yourself when choosing a color is, what do I want to stand for? And this is not a question brand owners and designers only should ask themselves when designing a product or a space. Color has intrinsic effects on our human psyches and this is shown through research stating that color influences almost 85 percent of purchase decisions and that 95 percent of the times it is at a subconscious level.

Selecting the right shade however is more complex than one might think as each human being perceives color in a different way due to diverse factors such as gender, national origin, ethnicity, geographical location and what language we speak. Josef Albers experimented a lot with color and quoted “If one says ‘Red’ – the name of color – and there are fifty people listening, it can be expected that there will be fifty reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.” This underlines again how nothing about color is objective. Even though each color can elicit a different reaction among different people, there are universal connotations for each color that may set a basis for answering that question, what do I want to stand for? So before being able to answer that question and a particular color that question, one needs to know about the psychological effects of each color.

Before I start I think you should know that each color probably deserves an entire book written about its complexity and meaning but let us start with the basics. Now first things first, in color psychology 101, one learns that grey does not provoke any emotion as it is a true neutral, so unless you want to convey neutrality, grey may not be a great pick. Where does that leave then white and black, being the two colors that make up grey when mixed? The power of black speaks to experience, elegancy and knowledge but on an emotional level it could make you seem invisible. Also remember that black absorbs light and does not reflect light when you are decorating spaces. White is all about clarity, cleanliness and credibility. It is the color of that what is pure, airy but also at times, it may give a sterile look. White gives attention to shape, form and texture instead of color itself.

Yellow makes you stand out, it will grab the attention as it shines a light. Surround yourself with yellow and be ready to be seen. Yellow also is the color of intuition and allows for clarity of thinking. Orange is a true social color, as it connects, allows for communication and increases not only our appetite for food but also for adventure and creative experiences. Red is about excitement for life, it is energy and its effects are deeply rooted into our human psyches. Red is dominant, determined and irrepressible. Purple has been called the color of display and mystery. Reddish purples are perceived as warmer, more sensual, dynamic and exciting. Blueish violets stand for dignity and serenity. Green is the color of compassion and self-care, growth and balance. Green revitalises while also having a calming effect as green encourages us to breathe, literally replenishing ourselves with fresh oxygen. And then lastly, blue. Blue relaxes the mind, it pacifies our nervous systems where psychologically it stands for trust, all that is constant and reliable.

Color is complex, ever-changing, intriguing but once understood, so very powerful. So what color reflects what you stand for today?

Wielding Color

Have you ever wondered why you feel the way you do in certain spaces? Do you feel anxious in a yellow room? Does the colour blue make you feel calm and relaxed? Artists and interior designers have long believed that colour can dramatically affect moods, feelings and emotions.

One of the first to study colour was Isaac Newton back in 1660 and still today people are studying its effects on the human psyche. In 1911, the Theory of Colours was published by Russian artist Kandinsky who claimed that colours cause the human soul to vibrate and stated that colour was a powerful tool to influence human beings as physical organisms. “Psychologically, said Kandinsky, it has been proven that a red light can excite and have a stimulating effect on the heart, while the blue colour can even cause a temporary paralysis”. Kandinsky for those who may not know was also a synesthee, he would see colour when listening to music. Approximately 3 to 5 percent of the population has some form of synesthesia (when ones sense comes through as another). But where does leave the rest of us? Can we learn to understand how some colours make us feel? What power do designers and architects have by influencing our surroundings and perhaps even, enhance our emotions?

By all accounts it is a topic of great interest especially for the Big Five. Back in 2019, Google designed A Space for Being during Milan Design Week where they had partnered up with scientists to show the importance of design and its impact on our health and well-being. Three slightly contrasting interior spaces were designed according to the principles of neuroaesthetics that would show how visual aesthetics impact our brain and physiology. Various textures, sounds, lights and scents were used to stimulate the visitors’ senses in a different way and understand how these may impact us negatively or positively. Now even if the study did not focus only on colour but merely the overall experience, it did the importance of objects that we surround ourselves with and that designers have a great impact on the choices we make each and every day.

Dialling back a little bit on why a company like Google would do such a study. I think we can all agree that once big tech knows how we feel in certain moments, it will sell this data to the highest bidder who in return will hopefully be encouraged to design better and apply colour into our lives more fittingly. But what is the true question here? Not how can we sell more according to peoples’ preferences. No, the question is, how come we have lost connection to our own intuition on what feels good colour-wise and what does not? In a world where algorithms show us where our main interest lies according to our buying patterns online, our connection with our own personal preferences and styles have diminished over time. Are we on autopilot and how we go back from here?

Interesting therefore is the new campaign by Argos who has partnered up with Ogilvy UK to encourage people to decorate their homes in styles and colours that reflect more accurately their personality. The British retailer has launched a series of YouTube videos called “Make Yourself, At Home” hosted by interior designer Siobhan Murphy. Fascinating enough the campaign makes use of an AI tracking device to monitor how each family emotionally responds to aesthetic input on a large screen. The homes are then filled with products to which the family had a positive emotional response to.

One of the main reasons for Argos to perform such campaign is the increasing use of greys and beiges in our homes over the past decades, in contrast to the opulent colours of earlier decades. Remember the famous interiors of the 60s’, early 70s’ decorated in avocado green, harvest gold and burnt orange? A late British study however has showed how the colours grey, black and whites made up for about 15% of colours around 1800 whereas now they make up for over 50% of colours used in our direct environments. Now remember that in colour psychology we learned that grey does not provoke any emotion at all as it is a true neutral, where does that leave black and white, grey being a mix of both? No wonder we humans are not stimulated to use colour living in a colourless world as research shows that the less we are surrounded by colour, the less we are encouraged to use it or even grow afraid of colour. Is technology the answer to our colour phobia and will it truly connect us with our intuition?

Perhaps the next time you enter a space for the first time, take the time to understand how you feel in that particular space and what role the colours play in this overall experience. Because the answer to how colour makes us feel, lies deep within ourselves if we listen carefully enough.

First published in Mix Interior Magazine.