KEY POINTS:
"Kitchens are red, offices are blue don't paint your walls green, it makes you want to chill out." Those were the words of my sister-in-law, who'd just completed her thesis on colour psychology, when I told her I was planning to redecorate my home office.
That explains a few things, I thought, gazing at my green desk, green drawers, green magazine holders and green views into the bush.
Science has long recognised that colour affects our behaviour and the way we feel. Essentially, when the light reflected from coloured objects strikes the retinas in our eyes, they are converted into electrical impulses passing into the part of the brain that rules our hormones and endocrine system, instrumental in regulating our moods.
But why did people respond differently to the same shade? It was leading UK colour psychologist Angela Wright who, by studying colour harmonies and the often unconscious thought processes related to them, developed a means of predicting our responses to colour with remarkable accuracy.
It's called the Colour Affects System and works on two levels: First, the need to match the individual's personality with the appropriate tonal colour family. There are four of these, each reflecting nature's patterns, and every shade can be categorised into one of them. Once you know your tonal family (check out what personality you are spring, summer, autumn or winter at www.resene.co.nz), you can create colour combinations that will help turn homes into spaces that reflect and support the personalities of those living there.
Secondly, you can look into how the 11 basic colours can affect you psychologically and how variations in tones, hues and tints can play in achieving a desired effect.
It is not one colour that triggers our responses, but a combination of the millions of colours, hues, tones and tints.
For example, a grey sky over a summer cornfield will evoke quite a different emotion than will a grey winter's sky downtown.
Therefore, there are no wrong colours per se, but different colour schemes do prompt different responses.
COLOUR ME BAD (OR GOOD)
Orange
Positive: Warm, passionate, sensual and fun. Cheerful and tend to stimulate the appetite, ideal for kitchens and dining rooms.
Negative: Feelings of deprivation, frustration, immaturity and lack of intellectual values.
Pink
Positive: Pink soothes. Research shows it can reduce anger hence its use in prisons. A nurturing colour with a childlike appeal, it is a good choice for a young girls' room, especially when combined with lavender.
Negative: Can smack of inhibition, emotional claustrophobia and physical weakness.
Grey
Positive: Enhances creativity, so a good office colour. Provides an unobtrusive and stylish background for all sorts of colour combinations and furnishings. Negative: Used excessively, can exude a lack of confidence and fear. Pure grey can be suppressive and depressing.
Black
Positive: Timeless and glamorous; colour of emotional safety, efficiency, substance and excellence. Psychologically, black creates protective barriers, as it absorbs all the other colours of the spectrum. Combine it with white and bright colours for a modern look, or use black furniture in a neutral-coloured room for elegance.
Negative: Represents oppression, coldness, seriousness and weight. It makes rooms seem smaller too.
White
Positive: Heightens perception of space, so ideal for small rooms. Representing hygiene and cleanliness, it's a popular choice for kitchens and bathrooms. Other traits include purity, simplicity, sophistication and efficiency.
Negative: Can indicate sterility, coldness, barriers, unfriendliness and elitism; can make warm colours look garish.
Brown
Positive: Seriousness, warmth, nature, reliability and support. It is a comfortable colour and wears well, so ideal for a family room. Combined with shades like pale blue or fuchsia, browns can also be exciting and ooze sophistication. They work very well with spicy or warm colours, too.
Negative: Getting it wrong gives an impression of lack of humour and sophistication, and heaviness.
Red
Positive: Represents physical courage, strength, warmth, energy and excitement. It raises our blood pressure, stimulates appetite and tends to make us lose track of time. Pure red is powerful, and so is best used as an accent, such as one piece of red furniture or one red signature wall. More subdued hues can be cosy in a bedroom or living area.
Negative: When misused or overused, red can trigger aggression.
Blue
Positive: The colour of intelligence. Strong hues denote clear thought; lighter ones, mental focus. Improves productivity, so might be a good choice for a study. Certain shades of blue make us feel calm, which is why they are often a preferred bedroom colour. Clean; works well in bathrooms and laundry areas. Negative: Can exude coldness and aloofness. In kitchens, it seems to be less desirable and can act as an appetite suppressant.
Yellow
Positive: Optimism, confidence, extraversion, emotional strength, friendliness and creativity. Tends to make people feel happy and energetic. Buttery shades easier to live with.
Negative: Too much yellow or the wrong tone can prompt irrational behaviour; can also induce fear, depression and anxiety.
Green
Positive: Harmony, balance and peace. Soothes and relaxes, and is therefore a healing and reassuring colour. Olive and sage greens are neutral and timeless character and are therefore a popular office colour.
Negative: Can elicit boredom, stagnation and blandness.
Purple
Positive: The colour of royalty; opulent and often associated with mystery and spiritual awareness, vision, luxury, authenticity, truth and quality. Saturated, dark purple can add powerful punch to a room.
Negative: Excessive use can create an introverted aura or appear cheap and nasty.
