What Are The Best Interior Design Reference Works For Color?
February 6, 2009 3:28 PM   Subscribe

What Are The Best Resources To Study Color From An Interior Design-Specific Perspective?

I've been coming up with a palette for my apartment, but in the process discovered I'm insanely infatuated with the mechanics and psychology of color.

I'm curious to hear from professional interior designers on Metafilter who can point me to the best ways of studying color, understanding it's uses, and also some of the problems you face when designing homes. Ideally, any books you consider essential to color and ID, reference works, barring the usual "go to paint store site and play with the software therein" would be very appreciated.

I realize there's a lot of askme threads on this, but I'm ideally hoping I can hear from interior designers specifically about this topic. References to room approaches, color psych, light effects, etc. are most welcome.
posted by Lipstick Thespian to Home & Garden (2 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
hi, I am an architecture postgrad student; the basics of colour can be studied from sources that are intended for many different purposes, I like Jim Krause's design basics index, as for the rest:
I think colour psychology is a rather spurious idea
what do you mean by room approaches?
obviously different lights produce different outputs and this will affect perception of the colours, but since daylight is probably a fixed point of 'colour temperature' assuming the room has any windows then that will come first. I would pick artificial lighting after determining the colours and consider each artificial light situation case-by-case.
large areas of sample colours placed in the room are a neccesity for final decisions.
hope that helps.
posted by daveydave at 8:45 AM on February 7, 2009


I don't think you can do better than the books by Kaufman and Dahl.

Here are two that we use regularly for reference:

Color Palettes: Atmospheric Interiors Using the Donald Kaufman Color Collection


Color and Light: Luminous Atmospheres for Painted Rooms

Hope this helps.
posted by artdrectr at 12:47 AM on February 18, 2009


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