Monday, March 19, 2012

Black Magic

6 Reasons to Cross Over to the Dark Side – NOW!

Aussie Restaurant

The first time I ever got to choose the colour for a room I chose black. I was seventeen. It was a large room in our basement and I painted the fake wood paneled walls black, high gloss black. That was when my love affair with black began.

Poodle Head. Designer, Abigail Ahern

Black’s beauty comes as a surprise to most people. When I suggest it to clients they think it will be depressing, that it will suck the life-blood right out of them, or that it is only suitable for their rebellious teenage kids. But those who take the plunge are invariably shocked to find out how fabulous it is and wonder why on earth they waited so long. Here are six reasons why black is a fantastic wall colour:

Abigail Ahern

Black is relaxing. We live in a world of visual over-drive – over 80% of information is received visually. We need black, the colour of quiet, to chill out. Darkness reduces visual input while enhancing our other senses; this why we close our eyes when we kiss and dim the lights at concerts. In a black room you can hear yourself think. In a busy, urban, largely white world, we need black for psychological balance.

Bedroom image from Sheri Martin Interiors

Black is neutral. If your chromatic comfort zone is neutrals, black adds drama, interest and rhythm into the palette while avoiding “colour”. It is important to use value – light to dark – effectively if you are working with a neutral palette, otherwise it will be flat. Extend beyond pale and midtone values into black or charcoal for depth and variety.

Living room image from Sheri Martin Interiors

Stairway. Abigail Ahern

Black makes small spaces bigger. Our eyes do not focus on black surfaces. They seem to look through them into a deep void. Add gloss to take it further and exaggerate the effect. Use black to double the width of a narrow powder room, the breadth of a small vestibule or the height of low basement ceilings.

Fireplace. Abigail Ahern

Black is slimming. The little-black-dress principle works for everything from furniture to cabinets. Black reduces bulk so use it for sofa upholstery and paint it on bookcases, fireplaces and cabinetry or any protuberance that seems too big for the room. Outside use black on large sheds or garages to reduce their size.

Abigail Ahern

Black hides flaws and emphasizes features. Our eye is drawn to light things and floats over dark. At night we look at stars, not sky. So paint anything that is ugly, flawed or boring black to make it go away. Then notice how black walls, like the frame around a painting, are the background against which everything looks great! Black makes it easy to create focal points. Decorating a black room requires few but better pieces making you the curator of what it is you want to feature and enjoy.

Abigail Ahern and her London home.

Replace white with black for a beautiful exterior. Black, off-black, charcoal or dark brown trim and details can give even rather ordinary brick or stone homes a sophistication that white does not. Homes become more Japanese in style or contemporary. Garage doors are less in-your-face. But the real magic is the garden. Any fences or structures that are painted with dark colours take on a gentler presence and let the colours of nature be the star of the show. Against black all colour glows.

Shiny black. Abigail Ahern

Nineteenth century British artist J. M. W. Turner said you cannot paint light without dark colours. I think we need dark walls to really see and appreciate the light spaces; they seem so much brighter by comparison.

Light. Abigail Ahern

Tips:

• If you are using black on all the walls and the ceiling, a pale floor is good for balance.
• White is black’s complementary colour so black and white is a very powerful combo. Avoid using them in equal amounts. Use one as the dominant colour and the other as accent. One black wall or a black ceiling in a white room works well. Black and white checkered things are busy. Replace the white with tan or stone grey to soften the contrast on floors and back splashes. Mix black and off-white instead of white for a Chanel elegance.
• Avoid black floors. They are as hard to keep clean as white, if not harder! Gloss finish will reveal flaws on a surface. If your walls are in bad shape still to low sheen finishes embrace the flaws.

Room in the Hotel Chelsea

Fave blacks from my Coming Home Colour Collection for PPG Pittsburgh Paints:

• Black Magic 518-7 a true black.
• Black Elegance 531-7 a slightly purple black.
• Knight’s Armor 518-6 charcoal with a touch of blue, great exterior colour!
• Gibraltar Gray 530-6 a warm lead colour for those who want to ease over to the dark side.

As one of my black-loving clients once said to me: Black is the colour of confidence. You just have to have the confidence to use it.

Please send me your dark stories!

Labels: black wall color paint interior colour design

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Monday, February 13, 2012

My Highlights from this year's Interior Design Show, IDS

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Friday, January 27, 2012

Martin Cederblad's picture of blue room designed by Swedish stylist and designer, Sara Sjögren.

What is the most commonly stated “favourite colour”? Blue! Not aqua or baby blue but royal blue, indigo, or its more vivid family member that is the colour originally made from Lapis Lazuli. This last colour was, for centuries, the most prized, rare and expensive of hues, literally worth its weight in gold. Only the wealthy could afford this blue, and they used to make artists and artisans sign a contract for how much good blue they would get and where it would be used. Inspectors would make surprise visits to ensure no less expensive blues were being substituted.

In my work as a colour designer, what is the colour my clients most rarely use? Yup, royal blue. The exception is accent walls in a sporty child’s bedroom.

The demise of blue began when blue no longer had to be shipped from exotic and hard to reach places in Afghanistan and laboured over for months to turn into usable pigment. In the mid nineteenth century the chemical industry was producing all sorts of bold new artificial colours. (This made Impressionism possible.) Blue became just one of the many. Van Gogh still thought blue was the divine colour. For Picasso, poor and lonely in turn-of-the-century Paris, it was the colour of sadness and longing – his blue period.

A Yves Klein painting done in his signature colour, IKB, found on postandgrant.co.

French artist Yves Klein invented a recipe for an artificial blue that he thought rivaled the beauty of the natural pigment. So thrilled with the colour he called IKB (International Klein Blue) was he that he took out a patent on it and painted a series of all blue canvases.

Today stores selling china, jewelry and glassware use blue for the displays because blue is the colour of things we cannot touch or hold – water, air, and space – so, psychologically, it says Do Not Touch. In advertising it is the colour most often used by banks because it conveys honesty and trustworthiness. In clothing blue has always been the conservative colour of uniforms, blazers and the easy going denim. It is a way to wear colour without appearing colourful.

So why not on walls?

Naho Kubota's photograph of Jeffrey Inaba’s pop-up café, located in the halls of the Whitney Museum of American Art for the 2010 Biennial, which uses blue light to create a surreal ambiance.

Perhaps it is time to disassociate the colour with sports and see it as van Gogh did – the divine colour - and tap into its unearthly beauty.

In this powder room I used blue wallpaper, blue gloss on the ceiling and the client added a black mirror to complete the surroundings.

Use blue as an alternative to red in a dining room and as a way to expand the dimensions and drama of a powder room. Deep royal blue alters space, blurs the shape and size, and transforms a room into a mysteriously magical world with surrealistic splendor. It can be had without the requiring a king’s ransom!

In this room I used shine on the walls and gold on the ceiling for warmth and drama. I cannot imagine how unpleasant white would be here!

Tips on using indigo: Go all the way. The key is to be submerged in this colour. You are creating a three-dimensional atmosphere – space - not defining an area. No white ceiling and trim!! They interrupt the ambiance.

Blue trim! Painting trim the same colour as the walls or ceiling prevents colour interruption.

Paint the trim the same blue as the walls or a deep colour. Ditto the ceiling. though gold, metallic or mirror finishes are also good because they bounce light and add shimmer. Alternatively, use a second and slightly lighter blue, for example, with a dark blue like PPG Pittsburgh Paints 349-7 Dragonfly on the walls, use PPG 348-5 Shrinking Violet on the ceiling.

Blue Graffiti: This mural in San Francisco has an interesting blue based palette that avoids complementary colours that kill blue’s mood.

Sheen will increase depth and space. Feel free to use satin finish on all surfaces: walls, trim, ceiling. The floor or carpeting can be lighter or brighter, a contrast, a relief.

Pop-up café designed by the Rockwell Group, NYC

Furnish the space with things that are white or bright, have crystal or sparkling surfaces. Metals are good. Expand the palette into magenta and berry colours. Blue is the deep background against which these things play.

Note: Blue is not always cold. It gets warmer as it gets darker. Blues can be warm if you choose one that leans away from the turquoise and green side of the colour wheel and goes toward purple and red where it picks up warm undertones. Try PPG Pittsburgh Paints 347-6 Blue Odyssey, PPG 348-7 Brilliant Blue, or PPG 445-7 Royal Hyacinth from my Coming Home Colour Collection. (Ask for a big chip or a brochure.)

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

A beautiful room is designed not decorated. Decoration means adornment or ornamentation. Design, at its best, is about function handled beautifully. Good design is what Apple products and the humble brown paper bag have in common (note the little serrated top edge that prevents you from getting a paper cut). Nothing is frivolous, every detail is considered and a quiet beauty emerges from function driven form. This is why a beautifully designed room, chair or object will never go out of style while decorated things become dated period pieces.

Charles Eames sofa via Apartment Therapy

If I could afford it, my sofas would be designed by Antonio Citterio or Christian Liaigre and distilled so that design becomes almost invisible, felt as much as seen. Why are so many mid-century furniture pieces by the likes of Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen selling as much, if not more, now than when they were designed 80 years ago? It is because they represent aesthetically appealing solutions to everyday functions. No one will bang their knees on a Saarinen table base AND the marble top won’t stain and does not feel cold to the touch because of extra layers of lacquer. The beveled edge adds to the sculptural quality. His Womb Chair is as comfy as a big and beefy armchair but it is nimble, and light enough to turn to the window or pull up to a table rather than staying parked permanently in one spot. Buy well, buy once, and get pleasure forever. Good design is like an expensive bargain.

Eero Saarinen table via Oliver Yaphe

When I do colour, some might think this is surface not function and therefore entirely decorative. I disagree. Good colour is also about feel and function. I don’t decorate with it. I renovate! (In the up and coming weeks I will share with you how colour can be used to adjust scale and proportion to balance a space.) Most importantly, it balances energy levels, making a place feel calm or exciting and everything in between. Colour is about customizing physical space to fit the people. It is not about having fun with bold hits of hue. As Dieter Rams, designer for Braun, put it, “Good design is as little design as possible”. So when the son of a client said he knew I'd used 24 colours in his mum’s condo but he could only see twelve, I asked if it looked good. He said yes. I like to think that that’s good design.

Eero Saarinen wombchair via Style Estate

Suggested viewing on Dieter and the subject we just discussed is the documentary film, Objectified.
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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Australian House Beautiful for May

I am in the month's Australian House Beautiful! I did have a good time over there speaking at the Design and Furniture Fair and would go back at the drop of a hat. Especially if I could stop in Fiji again en route. - It is such a hard life having to travel about to share my passion for Colour and Design.

Labels: colour designer, Janice Lindsay, white

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Thursday, February 4, 2010

Unhappy Hipsters Great Site!

Unhappy Hipsters: "Trapped by the tawny palette, he struggled through yet another brown knit scarf.
(Photo: Randi Berez; Dwell, September 2005)"
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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Graffiti artist Richard Wright wins Turner Prize with Beautifull Wall!

I love this year's UK Turner Prize winner's gold-leafed wall. Like a Rorschach ink blot Wright's symetricall damask-like pattern invites you to see things in its gold lacey pattern. The shimmering piece fills one wall of an other-wise empty room. Sadly, in true gaffiti fashion, when the exhibition is over it cannot be sold, collected for posterity. It will be buried under a coat of white paint. Sigh.......

Labels: Beauty is not out of fashion

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Previous posts:

• My First Visit to Maison et Objet in Paris
• San Fransisco and Fun Clients - gadda love my job!
• Spend money to save money - hire a colour pro!
• Get in touch with your Creative Side and be amazed!
• Black Magic
• My Highlights from this year's Interior Design Sho...
• The Beauty of Blues Go Deep Martin Cederblad's ...
• I Hate Decorating! A beautiful room is designe...
• Australian House Beautiful for May
• Unhappy Hipsters Great Site!