SampleBoard Color Talks: the colors having a big impact in 2012

According to a Benjamin Moore’s Color Chats post a recent survey was conducted by House Beautiful. The readers, interior designers and design bloggers were asked to reveal the colors they can’t live without.

Orange was voted most popular by 60% of bloggers and 45% of the readers. Brown was considered an out color by 27% of bloggers but 29% of readers chose pink. When we look at the Financial Global Crisis and understand brown is a color associated with poverty as well as earth and health in the USA maybe this explains why brown is not popular. The only places it appears to be perceived as positive is in Australia where to the Aboriginals brown is the color of their valued land and in the Ukraine where it symbolizes the earth and it’s bounty. In India brown is the color of mourning and in Nicaragua the color of disapproval.

Concept board created by Rosena on SampleBoard.com

Yellow was voted the most popular color for kitchens and in a close second was white. I understand yellow is a popular color for kitchens in the UK echoing the trend in the US. White would probably be the most popular color for kitchens in Australia. In Europe and Northern America yellow is the symbol of hope and happiness. In Mexico and Egypt it is the color of mourning and yellow is a sacred color in China.

Sample board created by Rosena on SampleBoard.com

Blue is a popular color no surprise here as blue is often a popular color choice about 29% said blue was their favorite color. Blue is the number one color for bedrooms a wise choice as it is a restful color and is said to lower the heart rate. Blue is used by many banks in the US as a symbol of trust, in China it is the color of immortality, In Israel blue represents holiness and the South African Zulu considers it the color of happiness. Globally blue is considered to be the safest and most positive color.

Sample board created by Rosena on SampleBoard.com

The popularity of purple has been increasing in recent years. I noticed it was a popular color in London during the Olympic Games. In Europe and America violet/purple is the color of royalty. Yet in Brazil and Thailand it is the color for mourning. The results in the Home Beautiful poll revealed 29% of people chose purple as a color they could not live without and 27% of people stated green as their preferred color. 35% of designers said purple was the hottest color right now.

Concept board created by Rosena on SampleBoard.com

Green is a global color often used for the military. In Europe and the US it is the symbol of environmental awareness, new birth and spring. In North Africa it is the symbol of corruption and in South Africa it is a symbol of nature. In some countries it is a forbidden and dangerous color. It is considered the national color of Ireland. As I have said before I just love color and I never tire of learning more and checking out new color trends.

Mood board created by Rosena on SampleBoard.com

Please note the information on the cultural meaning of colors is from a chart found on the website www.gobalalization-group.com ‘Color Meanings by Culture’ If you go to the website you will find a link to a fascinating download By Surya Vanka ‘International Color Guide’ from Textronix/Xerox.

Author: Rosena MacFadzean for SampleBoard.com – concept creation online

Trendy grey & yellow interior design & as a wedding color scheme

Grey can create a sophisticated, smart elegant color scheme. However it is a challenging color to use. In this blog I will mention a few things to consider when working with grey. Pure grey is rare in nature. Grey is considered a non or neutral color so it can be used with any color.

Concept board created by Rosena on SampleBoard.com

Grey ranges from grey white, ash grey, silver, cool bluish grey, cyan (a greenish blue), warm reddish grey, dark grey to charcoal and grey black. One of the keys to working with grey is to realize how different the greys can be. A way of making a grey color scheme work is to use many different shades of grey. In this way you know it is going to work. You need to be very skilled in color selection to be able to combine a few greys successfully but it can be done.

The wonderful thing about grey is it can work with any color. One of the in vogue color schemes is grey using just a touch of yellow. This works very well as too much grey can be depressing and yellow is such an uplifting and sunny color. The other key is to use at least three different tones of grey; a light grey, mid grey and darker grey. They do not need to vary very much. But a hint of dark grey and black can add impact. Adding shine with silver accessories or mirrors is another way of making the greys in the room sing.

Wedding inspiration mood board created by Rosena on SampleBoard.com

Grey and yellow are also popular colors for weddings at the moment. Having the bridesmaids and the groom dressed in grey works well. Selecting yellow or yellow and white flowers for the bouquet and décor is the only other color needed. An unusual cake and table decoration can be the addition of lemons giving a fresh spring like feel. You will note in the wedding inspiration mood board above the grey curtain appears warmer than the grey ribbon on the cake and the grey vase due to the lighting. It is important to check your color selections in different lights.

Wedding inspiration mood board created by Rosena on SampleBoard.com

I will leave you with a quote from the fabric designer and master colorist Manuel Canovas he said “There are no ugly colors, there are no ugly sounds there are only unfortunate combinations” Our challenge as designers and wedding planners is to combine colors successful. But don’t you just love color? I do.

Author: Rosena MacFadzean for SampleBoard.com – concept creation online

The most popular interior paint colours (colors)

This blog is about three of Australian’s favorite interior design paint colours, an Old English sheep dog and 50 years of Dulux paint in the UK.

In March 2012 Dulux  Australia is promoting ‘Australian’s Favorite Colours’. It was interesting to note the three most loved Dulux colours are ‘Antique White USA’ an ivory white; most popular with the architectural market. Number two ‘Natural White’ slightly less warm and lighter than Antique White and number three ‘Hog Bristle’ a beige white colour.

I have noted the ‘Hot Bristle’ has been the most selected colour for assignments I have marked. I have also selected ‘Antique White USA’ for a number of projects. I received the large samples of the colours in a folder with the Old English sheep dog on the cover this week. As I gazed at the dog I remembered the beautiful dog used in the commercials here in Australia. I was lucky enough to enjoy the company of one of the dogs dear Boz when I worked in an interior design firm with his owner.

The favorite Aussie colours made me wonder about the favorite interior paint colours in the UK and USA. When I visited the UK Dulux website I discovered Dulux UK had celebrated 50 years of advertising using an Old English sheep dog in 2011. I couldn’t find the most popular interior paint colours in the UK but I did gather information of the Dulux paint colours used through the decades. So I got distracted I’m a sucker for history of any sort.

Sample Board featuring Natural White created by Rosena on SampleBoard.com

The dog was first used in 1961. The 60s saw a DIY boom; colours like ‘Summer Blue’ were popular. In the 70s ‘Sunshine’ and ‘Lime Juice’ were fashionable. Different shades of the same colour were used on the walls, ceiling and on the architectural detailing. The 80s peach and grey were the hallmark of an up to date room. Colours like ‘Early Dawn, ‘Coral White’ and ‘Apricot White’ popular for colour schemes.

During the 1990s pastel shades of lilac, green and cream were fashionable. The colours ‘Sapphire Satin’ and ‘Irish Cream’ were also popular. In the late 90s themed rooms came into vogue. Neutrals were used with vibrant colours. Colours like ‘Japanese Cherry’ and ‘Jade Taffeta’ considered trendy.

The 2000s started with a move toward neutrals with colours like ‘Natural Hessian’ and ‘Perfectly Taupe’. From 2004 to 2006 a range of new lighter neutrals were popular the aim to make rooms appear bigger and lighter. In 2007 the beginning of the trend for feature walls began with paint colours like ‘Mulberry Burst’ and ‘Raspberry Diva’.

Sample Board featuring Hog Bristle created by Rosena on SampleBoard.com

2010 saw the rise of individual taste taking prominence with colours like ‘Lemon Punch’ and ‘Indigo Infusion’. In 2011 unusual colour combinations; the attitude anything and everything is possible. Colours like ‘Luscious Lime’ and Purple Pout’ were right on trend. Don’t you just love the names? I must admit I find the colours delicious.

I had intended to move on to the most popular colours in the USA in this blog but I think it best to save that for another post. I love colour (or color to some) and have kind of got off track what with Boz the dog and Dulux UK 50 years through the decades. You may be interested in visiting the Dulux UK website to check it all out, as you can tell I found it most interesting.

Author: Rosena MacFadzean for SampleBoard.com – concept creation online

Celebrating yellow | Cape Town selected as World Design Capital 2014

SampleBoard is great for designing images for social media campaigns and presentations too!

Yellow is the colour of hope and positivity, and today it is also the colour of celebration for the City of Cape Town as it was announced as the World Design Capital 2014.

As yellow is one of the three primary colours, so too was Cape Town one of three cities shortlisted for the prestigious title of World Design Capital 2014. The colour yellow has been splashed all over the mother city in the past few months as Cape Town ran a Facebook campaign titled ‘Find Your Yellow’, including the yellow support badge and other yellow inspired paraphenalia.

Yellow inspired moodboard created on SampleBoard.com

SampleBoard.com feels inspired by the City of Cape Town’s bold use of yellow and we thought we’d honour it with an expression of all tones and types of yellow and yellow-inspired images!

You can create you own inspirational image board by signing up here!

Interior Design | Decorating with Color

SampleBoard created by Moira Mannen on sampleboard.com

Talking about Tints: Interior Decoration Color Schemes

Color is considered by many to be the most important of the interior design elements. Color can create moods, make a room appear bigger or make a room appear colder or warmer. It is a powerful interior decorating tool. This article will give you some hints on how you can easily select the best colors for your interior decorating project and how to decorate with color.

Color is a fascinating subject. Did you know – the most popular car colors are the least safe?  Ancient Greek temples were originally brightly painted? The apparent length of a committee meeting can depend on the colors used to decorate the room it is held in? These facts indicate the power of color and why it is important to select the right color.

Colors are basically light or dark, warm or cool. Light and cool colors tend to recede (when used on the walls of a room they can make the walls appear to move out) and can make a room appear bigger. Dark and warm colors appear to advance into a room and can make a room appear smaller.

SampleBoard created by Moira Mannen on sampleboard.com

Decorating with Color

When you are selecting a color for a room there are three main things you need to consider. The first one is the aspect of the room. This is the position of the room in relate to the sun. Does the room face the sun or not. Rooms that get a lot of sunlight can appear hot. Rooms that get little or no sunlight can appear cool. If you want a room that gets a lot of sunlight to appear cooler then use cool colors from the green or blue family of colors. If you have a room that gets no sunlight and you want it to appear warmer then use warm colors from the red, yellow orange family.

The second consideration is your personal preference. The color selected should suit your personality. If your favorite color is blue but the room you are decorating appears cool using your favorite color could create a problem. Blue could make a room a room that gets no sun appear cool. To overcome this challenge you could use a warm color (for example orange) tinted to appear nearly neutral on the walls. Then use your favorite blue color in other items in the room.

All colors can be tinted. To create a tint of a color all you need to do is add white. Tinted colors have white added to make them appear lighter. The third thing to consider when selecting colors for a room is the size and shape of the room. If the room is small light colors can make it appear bigger. If a room is large warm colors can make it appear smaller. If the room is very long and narrow the short walls can be painted in a darker or warmer color than the color used on the longer walls. This will make to shorter walls appear to advance into the room in comparison to the longer walls, making the room appear shorter and wider.

Test your color schemes on our interior design moodboard editor now to see which colors are best to use for different parts of the room.

Author: Rosena MacFadzean for SampleBoard.com

Client Presentations | Create Color Schemes in various Design Disciplines

SampleBoard created by Pixy Louise Smith on sampleboard.com

Create a Color Scheme with your initial design presentation

The easiest way to start designing a look and feel for a client is by getting the color scheme right from the beginning. By presenting various color schemes when pitching to a client it will give you a good indication of the feeling your client wants to create, be it an interior space, fashion collection, graphic brochure or website layout…

Most creative design disciplines require some sort of color scheme when creating an initial design – may it be by using paint swatches, fabric samples, HEX or RGB color codes. Color schemes are useful in any design presentation.

SampleBoard created by Pixy Louise Smith on sampleboard.com

Designers in various design disciplines can easily create their own color palette on www.sampleboard.com by following these steps.

Check out SampleBoard.com’s Creative Community for more inspirational ideas on how to create beautiful sampleboard presentations.

Contemporary Kitchen Design | Inspirational SampleBoard using CeasarStone

SampleBoard created by Moira Mannen on sampleboard.com

Kitchen Design | Use fabulous finishes like CeasarStone

The most important thing to remember when designing your clients (or your own) kitchen are the finishes. Kitchen’s are always valued by which finishes you select so bare this in mind when designing a kitchen from scratch.

Usually an Interior Designer would start with the kitchen countertops and build the scheme around it. A popular choice at the moment is CeasarStone.

CaesarStone kitchen tops have four times the flexural strength and double the impact resistance of granite while impressively outperforming marble. With a beautiful color range to choose from, if you can afford it, this is definitely the way to go!

You can view and play with the CeasarStone colorways, creating your own kitchen design, on www.sampleboard.com, searching under:

• ‘Interior Design’ design discipline
• Category: Decorative Surfaces
• Type: CeasarStone

Happy Creating!

Inspirational SampleBoard | Use nature as inspiration for design projects

Sampleboard created by Eileen Reiner on sampleboard.com

‘Designers Block’ | Using nature to portray visual ideas

We all use design in our everyday life, we just don’t always realise its impact on us! We also know how important it is to get clients and colleagues on the same creative page quickly when working on a project.

Nothing does this better than an inspirational concept/mood or sampleboard. Whether designing interiors, capturing trends or creating colour schemes or themes – sampleboards capture visual ideas.

All of us sometimes suffer from ‘designers block’, on these days try using nature to stimulate your creative process, you’ll be amazed how fast a beautiful old tree trunk turns into the inspiration for your look and feel concept like the Inspirational SampleBoard created by Eileen.

SampleBoard.com allows you to save time, energy, money and the environment by creating digital sampleboards, from the comfort of your own creative space…

Fashion Design | Inspirational moodboard

SampleBoard created by Pixy Louise Smith on sampleboard.com

Do you wish to express your creative ideas visually?

SampleBoard offers a simple, powerful design tool for creatives from all fields that helps you produce better work more quickly and effectively.

Boasting an image library of over 30,000 images, as well as being able to import your own images, you can then export your moodboards into a variety of formats.

Plus it’s a social networking community exclusive to the creative industries that will enable you to feed off each other’s ideas and inspirations and get a feel for design in other countries!

SampleBoard.com serves many different mediums of creative expression!

Check out www.sampleboard.com for other inspirational moodboards in the Creative Community, plus sign up for free to give it a go!

Wedding Planning | Setting the scene for a Vintage 1930s Wedding

Inspiration board created by Emma Jones on sampleboard.com

Setting the scene for a Vintage 1930s Wedding Theme

During the mid 1930s tight fitting flowing bridal gowns in slippery high sheen fabrics were popular. Dresses were often made of satins in silk or rayon. The most used colors were ivory, cream, pinkish white or pale blue white. The gowns were imitations of the glamorous evening dresses worn by Hollywood movie star.

High sheen fabrics in ivory, cream pinkish white

Cowl necklines, curved trains with long medieval sleeves were the main features of the dresses. The Bridesmaids often wore similar styles with Juliet caps and large bouquets of roses completing the picture. The bride sometimes carried a small handbag instead of a bouquet. Although roses were popular at the time the most popular flowers were the Madonna lily. Silver fox was the favorite fur.

Medieval style sleeves, Madonna Lilies, silver fox fur

Royal and society weddings influenced wedding trends in the 30s just as they do today. Princess Marina of Greece married in 1934. Her dress was a sheath cut on the cross. She had wide hanging sleeves again creating the medieval look. The fabric was silver and white brocade.

SampleBoard created by Rosena MacFadzean on sampleboard.com

Royal weddings influenced wedding trends

Syrie Maugham’s famous white room style which ranged from, bright white, cream and beige would make an ideal setting a for 1930s themed wedding. Furniture lacquered or tubular steel, chrome or metal plating with textured wallpapers in off white decorated early 1930s rooms. Mirrors and mirrored screens add shimmer and shine.

White interiors with mirrors, lacquered, steel, chrome furniture

White vintage cars like the 1934 Auburn 851 would eco the glamorous era. The color schemes of the 1930s could also be repeated in the clothing or the decor. For example the usual colors cocoa brown with hyacinth blue, prune with turquoise or mustard yellow with grey.

Classic white car, cocoa brown, hyacinth blue, turquoise, mustard yellow and grey  

Eyebrows were plucked and penciled. Elizabeth Arden launched arrange of seven lipstick shades. Mascara and eye shadow came in four shades and eight shades of rouge became available. Suntans became fashionable to enhance the fashions particularly white swim suits and the satin dresses.

More make up choices available, suntans came into vogue 

Towards the end of the 1930s the movie Gone with the Wind helped speed up a Victorian revival in fashion. Dresses with high necklines, standup collars and padded shoulders with full skirts imitating fashions from the 1860s were becoming popular. But the movie released in 1939 saw lavish ball gowns the full skirts with crinolines panniers worn by Scarlet skyrocket in popularity. In wedding dresses bustles emphasized the hips and backs and long trains were attached from the center back. This style did not remain in fashion very long due to the world war of the 1940s.

Inspiration board created by Emma Jones on sampleboard.com

Creating mood boards can clarify your wedding plans

You can play around with your wedding theme ideas by creating mood boards. The wonderful thing is you can do it easily and quickly online at www.sampleboard.com . There are hundreds of images of dress, cakes, flowers and a host of other things to help you create your dream vintage wedding. This great website also has loads of inspiration in blogs, articles and wedding mood boards posted by the creative community.

Late 1930s saw revival of 1860s Victorian fashion lavish ball gowns with full skirts  

The glamorous 1930s gave way to the drab 1940s. Even through the lavish ball gown wedding dress was for a limited time popular in the 30s the era is more known for the glamorous white satin and glitter of movie star style. Therefore a 1930s wedding theme with white figure hugging gowns, white cars, white Madonna lilies with lots of glitter and shine would be more authentic.

SampleBoard created by Linda Smith on sampleboard.com

Jump start your creativity by combining images quickly and easily into digital moodboards on www.sampleboard.com!

Author: Rosena MacFadzean for SampleBoard.com