Color is a very powerful tool. Generally speaking, people don’t think about color having emotional and psychological impacts on our daily lives. As a color consultant, I must think about how colors affect mood, emotions and general well-being.
A beautifully orchestrated color palette can make someone’s day. Bad color schemes can put people into a fowl and uncomfortable mood. There are sciences dedicated to the psychological and physiological impact color can have on us.
A well-crafted color palette is more than pretty colors next to each other. It’s a measurement of energy and flow. It’s understanding how transitioning from one color to another guides our emotions through a story.
If the story is told well, it will bring upon emotions of happiness, calmness and even invigoration if desired. If a color story is poorly told and badly executed, it can leave people uncomfortable and disdainful towards the environment they are in.
In this blog, I’m going to share some helpful color tips and strategies to use when using color to boost your mood!
Understand the Emotional Intention of a Space
There is a place/space for every color you can imagine. But we must acknowledge that colors drive certain emotional responses. For instance, red is synonymous with passion, excitement, even aggression and anger. That’s why it’s considered the color of love.
It’s important to not mix colors into an environment that doesn’t call for particular unsolicited emotions. The clash will leave you feeling uneasy and off-balance. This is one of the guiding principles of color strategy and color inspiration. There’s a fine balance between fun and offensive. Our moods don’t lie and it’s important to respect how colors affect mood.
For example, you wouldn’t want to paint your washroom fire engine red because it would work against the neutral/calm intention of the duties carried out in the room. This clash could create unintentional anxieties.
Have you ever noticed how you don’t see blue used in casino color schemes or lighting? This is because blue is a soothing and calming color. It will not provoke our emotions for excitement, action and risk.
Thus, casinos figured it out a long time ago that blue doesn’t belong on the gambling floor. Colors need to work with the intended emotional response of the space. But, that doesn’t mean we cannot add colors into spaces that need it!
Put Those Colors to Work!
There are immediate and long-term color changes you can make to find color inspiration and boost your mood. Some may be very easy changes you can make to your environment and some will be more time-consuming and costly.
However, both strategies outlined below are worth exploring to help yourself and others feel better with color!
Longer-Term Color Changes – Let’s Get Started!
There’s a color exercise/test you can put yourself through in your own home. This exercise will help you pay attention to your emotional responses and learn more about the environment you’re surrounding yourself in each day.
Firstly, decompress a little bit. Put on your favorite cup of tea, play your favorite radio station and even take a short walk. Get yourself into a relaxed and receptive state. Now, take a notebook and begin to walk into each room of your home. I’m talking about EVERY room.
When you first enter the room, close your eyes and take some slow deep breaths. After 5-10 seconds, open your eyes and FEEL the space. Pay attention to how your emotions flow with the color of the room. Write down the feeling for each room you go into.
Understand how colors affect YOUR mood. At the end of this exercise, you will have a record of how the color choices of your home illicit emotions within you. Now, you can begin to strategize a color palette where the colors will flow throughout your home and how every room will work for you both emotionally and physically.
The rooms that provide you with negative emotional feedback need to be changed first. Your journal will tell you how you felt and you can begin sourcing the new colors and paints that will boost your mood for the better!
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Shorter-Term Color Changes
I understand that every color change that needs to happen can’t happen overnight. I know that planning, budgeting and consulting will need to be thought through; it’s part of a larger process to get it right. But, there are simpler and quicker color changes that you can make to boost your mood. These changes may be the most useful in the most unexpected of places!
Enter a space in your home that leaves you feeling just blah. Just uninspired. Now, look for places that could be accented with stimulating colors. Your bathroom can receive a quick burst of energy by adding in some coral pinks, teal blues or even a playful red. Your mailbox can be made more joyful with a new brilliant green. A splash of excitement in the sea a white and neutral grays!
On the inside, some red and violet throw pillows in your master bedroom can add some passion and eye-catching detail to an otherwise low-key room. Outside your home add a colorful welcome mat for those who come to your front door. Even the smallest amount of color can raise your spirits!
There are practical opportunities in each corner of your home, both interior and exterior, to add some color highlights that will boost your mood!
It’s Not About the Paint
It’s easy to think of adding paint colors to your home to change the mood of a space, and you can certainly make an instant change by painting the walls. Truthfully, though, we know that there are many places where you can add colors to affect the mood of a space.
Colorful walls in an office, accent pieces of furniture, or soft furnishings such as pillows, rugs, bed linens or even artwork on the wall will completely change the feel of a room at home.
Consider every element in the room whether it is on the wall or in the decor, as a possible place to make a change and add new colors!
Staying in Balance
Colors have the incredible power to balance out our emotions, and if the color arrangement of your every-day environment is off-balance, it’s understandable that your mood will be off-balance.
The good news is that you’re not trapped. Color inspiration can be found everywhere, and with a little attention to detail and motivation, it can be brought into your spaces too!
To learn about color inspiration and share how colors affect mood, please reach out! I’d love to hear your story.
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Great explanation, Amy! Color is indeed a powerful tool! It always evokes emotion and associations which explains why color preferences are so individual!
Yes Janet you are so right. Colors wherever they come from, can bring out your emotions!
Color is a powerful tool! This post is so informative and inspiring.
I am so glad you enjoyed reading it Lisa, thanks for stopping by and commenting!
Your posts are always so informative.
Thanks so much Ilse, I enjoy learning about color and I am glad you do too!
You’ve always had a way with color! I’ve always known that many restaurants use red in their decor as it stimulates the appetite but I never stopped to think about casinos or laundry rooms.
Thanks Jeanne, we are affected by color in more ways than we even realize. I’m so glad you found this lost informative!
I love what you said about how a color palette is “a measurement of energy and flow. It’s understanding how transitioning from one color to another guides our emotions through a story”. Such a wonderful way to think about color!