The Business of color

Color influences our mood.
Think of a cloudless day at the beach versus the threatening clouds of an impending hurricane.

Color has meaning.
Traffic lights tell us to stop and go. A map showing the states in red or blue show party affiliations. The orange rim of the carafe signals that the content is decaffeinated.

Color is a matter of trend and taste.
Currently, hairstyles are more colorful than ever. Shades of grey are meant to signal superior taste in interior design. The business of color shapes taste.

From the colors of your home…

“I love the color of that baby’s bedroom!” “What an awful color to paint a kitchen!” “The color scheme is boring!” When buyers look at homes, color influences their opinions and decisions. Choosing the colors of a home, from the exterior and interior walls, window treatments, flooring, carpets, cabinets, and upholstery to appliances, fixtures, linens, and towels, can be exhausting.

…to the color of your skin

We instinctively know when a color looks good on someone. It has everything to do with skin color, but it has nothing to do with race. Depending on the hue of the skin, people can be classified by the four seasons. When you give people several colors to drape themselves in, they ultimately choose the most flattering colors.

…the business of color is for real.

I am a winter. That means I look good in bright, high-contrast colors and like death warmed over in earth tones. In the above picture, I wear a shirt that I spotted on the sidewalk display of a Florida beach town. Whenever I wear it, I get many compliments. I know it not only looks good, but it looks good on me. Incidentally, the classification of colors by season has been influenced by the color theory of Johannes Itten, a Swiss painter of the Bauhaus school of design.

The business of color, a tyranny?

Since we know all this, why do so many people run around wearing the wrong colors and live in homes that have the charm of a dental practice waiting room? Poor judgment? Bad taste? Perhaps the main reason is that the colors they want or would suit them are not available, a consequence of the business of color.

Here is why. A few organizations determine the color schemes for everything years in advance. One such organization is the Color Marketing Group. Another is Pantone Matching Systems which promotes the color of the year. Designers and manufacturers apply this year’s color scheme to everything. If you can’t find a particular color for your carpet, that same color will also be unavailable for a sweater.

With some luck, you will find it next year.

Published originally as the 140th issue of The View from the Street.

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