Let the colour wheel help you

What you need to know:

  • Colours on the colour wheel in the blue and green pallet denote calmness, freshness and stability and these will be used mainly in bathrooms, toilets and reading rooms.
  • Red is a very strong colour. When you need to make a bold statement it is one of the few colours you can count on.

Apart from the colour combinations that involve black or white, red and black, white and blue or brown and black; homeowners often have a challenge trying to match colours to come up with a good combination.
This process can be so daunting that the final decision is to go with the safe options and stick with neutrals such as soft white, magnolia and cream.
There are many ways of creating your own colour scheme or pallet but today we are going to look at using the colour wheel.

The colour wheel is a circle that is primarily divided into three parts comprised of three colours; Red, Yellow and Green. These are referred to as primary colours. The next circle is drawn around the first and it is comprised of colours that are got when you mix a primary colour with another for example yellow and red make orange, blue and red make purple and so on. This range of colours is referred to as complementary colours.
If you would rather have colours contrasting than matching, pick a primary colour on the wheel, the complimentary colour opposite it is the one you can safely contrast it with. For instance, yellow would contrast well with purple.

Colour not only affects our emotions but perceptions. That is why it is thoughtfully used during the branding process. Certain colours, for example Red, provoke certain mental reactions.
Red is a very strong colour. When you need to make a bold statement it is one of the few colours you can count on. Even in animals it represents power and dominance for example a male chicken is determined by a red comb.

It has an aggressive impact on one’s mental state. When lit in traffic lights you move at your own peril, when a line is drawn in red on a list of names, you really do not want to be below that line even when you do not know what the consequence is.
Colours on the colour wheel in the blue and green pallet denote calmness, freshness and stability and these will be used mainly in bathrooms, toilets and reading rooms.
So, once you have selected the emotions you want to evoke in your space, pull out your colour wheel (which you will have downloaded from the internet)and confidently select the cluster or range you want to execute without worrying about whether the colours are a match.

-Gloria Kawuma
is an interior designer