Faber Birren (Color Authority, Author and Historian) adapted Wilhelm Ostwald’s (inventor of colour triangles to show how tints, tones and shades are created) to convey the following:
- Pure Colour has no White, Grey or Black in it
- Pure Colour + White = Tint
- Pure Colour + Black = Shade
- White + Black = Grey
- Pure Colour + White + Black = Tone
Any three way combination of each of Pure Colour, White, Grey, Black, Tint, Tone or Shade can be used to achieve colour harmony.
- Pure colour + White + Tint
2. Pure colour + Black + Shade
3. Pure colour + Black + White
4. Tint + Tone + Shade
5. Tint+ Shade + Grey
6. Black + White + Grey
7. Tint + Tone+ Grey
8. White + Tone + Shade
9. Pure colour + Tone + Grey
The use of a room should be the first consideration when designing a space. Colour affects energy conservation due to Selective Absorption. When light strikes a surface, all colours of the spectrum are absorbed except the colour we see, which is reflected.
- Dark colours still reflect a small amount of white light which dulls the purity of dark clear colours.
- Pure light colours make the best tints.
- Dark colours make the best shades.
- Colours can be made luminous by contrasting with greys and softly hued tones.
- Creating contrast using black and dark shade takes luminosity away.
- Warm colours are pure and luminous.
- Cool colours are deeper in grade.
- White paint does not reflect all wavelengths. White paint may absorb 10% to 20% of a wavelength thus reflecting the remaining 80 or 90%.
- Black paint does not absorb all colour, it may reflect around 5% of colour.
Paint companies often note the Light Reflection Value for colours on their charts, depicting how much of a wavelength is absorbed verses reflected. These should be consulted before choosing a colour for an interior so the right paint colour can be selected.
Information courtesy of New York School of Interior Design “Colour for Interiors” class
The above image is from Elle Decor in an article by Kathryn O’Shea-Evans titled “When you can’t leave the house, a home bar can be your new place for cocktail hour”. The above space is of course a home bar. Since the primary purpose of this space was to be a bar, the user is most likely using this space for entertaining. The designer has used a complementary colour scheme through the use of tint, tone and shades of green and tint and tones of red. Moreover, the highly chromatic reds and green coupled with varying tonal values create a very energizing space. Even the neutrals such as the gold and black used are very chromatic and mirrors and lots of light fixtures are used to bring light into this space. White is minimally used in the buck to the right and in the pictures on the wall. The above space is a prime example of how the use of the space was heavily taken into consideration of the design.
Information courtesy of New York School of Interior Design “Color for Interiors” class