kurty[B]

I've always been an art nutcase, and colours have always had importance to me, but lately I've been really interested on colors and the effects they have on people and studies on this.

For example, my room... I've painted the trim a bright white, the ceiling looks white from first glance, but is really a shade of blue, one wall is a light greyish-blue, and the other three are a darker blueish-gray. I have paintings of wintery scenes, and my art all around that all rather complements each other. I've read that blue is generally a sign of calming, or patience. Which would be a good description of my personality (don't like talking about myself like that, but in all honesty it is rather true).

Another example, another of my roommates, female roommate, painted her bedroom green, kinda a weird shade of green, but this signifies a link to nature (from what I've read), and well, don't see that one too well, on the other hand she has a sunroom that she painted red, with black trim (makes me want to vomit, and completely destroyed what I think could've been a perfectly fine area). Red is said to mean aggresiveness, and whatnot, and well this would describe her well as she likes to blow everything out of proportion and cause unnecessary drama over normally trivial things.

I was wondering, what books would you suggest to read to learn more about this topic, I want to know studies behind it, more than just a basic meaning for each color, I want to know what effects it might have on a person's mind, from just seeing that color to living in a room that is that color. I want to know what justified this. Secondly, what are your opinions on this, does it really matter? Does anyone hear have a red and black room? Personally to me, her sunroom and room together I describe as "Christmas on its Period".

Cynthetiq

i used to hang out in a black room... black walls with black light and black light fuzzy posters... was pretty weird.

maybe you should look into color therapy.

http://healing.about.com/cs/colorthe...lortherapy.htm

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anti fishstick

yes. dentists/doctors offices and hospital waiting rooms, etc. are meant to have a more calming affect on people. both in color scheme, pattern, and the paintings on the wall. similarly, at casino's or shopping areas, where the goal is to keep people out of the rooms, etc and into the shopping/gambling places, rooms can be very hectic. clashing patterns, agressive colors, etc. i noticed this in a bathroom at a mall here once. it had the black and white checkered pattern on the floor but it was so tiny that it strained my eyes. i could barely look down without getting a headache :P shouldn't the bathroom be as comfortable as possible? apparently not in this shopping mall.

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billcollins

I wish i could help you more on sources. I, myself, would like to seek out more information as well. I'm tired of blue being a major color in design work, i try to find alternate colors just because of that... though im quite fond of the color.

I know that our eyes are more peseptive to green than any other color. Some attribute this to our history of hunting in the wild, green, jungles and plains (how i miss those days). This is why nightvision is green (actually, nightvision that magnifies visible light is green. Those that use alternate wavelengths of light are grey). Also, in the RGB color system (for computer image storage) it is balanced to give more shades to green (and least to red, i believe).

One last contribution, different cultures have different predispositions to colors. (i wish i could name some off the top of my head... i wish to travel more) But examples of ours are Red = warning/stop, yellow = energy/mild warning (ok, im stealing these from the stoplight). I know McDonalds heavily used layout and color scheme to achieve their dominance.

charliex

the Navy did a study on what colours to paint the ships, it was pretty extensive i've been googling for it but i haven't found it so far.

i have a lot of colour theory books since i use them for the work i do in writing rendering engines and also for painting, but they are different styles, one set relies heavily on math, the others on form and function. There are a couple of magazines dedicated to colour theory.

simple one with colour wheel theory etc
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...ss08142000.asp

Hermann millers experience of colour
http://www.hermanmiller.com/hm/conte...e_of_Color.pdf


books, non technical

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

Also check out Josef Albers work from the bauhaus, which was a very important place for colour work in art and design

charliex

You'd hate my living room then billcollins

http://www.finitemonkeys.com/images/DSCN9420.JPG
and probably my hair too
http://www.cutemonkeys.com/me6.jpg

kurty[B]

Thanks for the replies, and I love that living room charliex, it has character!

I'm going to check out some of those books, this topic is very intriquing to me.

billcollins

charliex > nah, you got plenty of other color in there... I guess my main issues are graphic design and (people's personal) websites. I also said i try to avoid it (to force myself to be more diverse) but... i do use it as a main color fairly regularly

good topic