Colorful Wednesday - Turquoise

I wanted to start a Wednesday Color Series.  I am not sure how long I will run this particular series for, but it should be fun!  This is part of my whole "going back to my interior design roots" thing.

I love color.  I love learning about the meaning of color.  I love using color.  I love learning how colors interact with other colors. 

I LOVE COLOR!

In interior design, we study the meaning of color a lot. Color can have a powerful effect on people’s moods, health and well-being. This can be true in the fashion industry as well. Granted, certain colors hold particular feelings to individual people. But this is not what I am talking about. I mean the true study of the origin of colors and what feelings and thoughts are generally associated with the colors including any physical responses that can actually be monitored by scientific methods.

Yes, you read that correctly. Being exposed to certain colors can actually have measurable, physical effects on a person. For example, being exposed to bright, vibrate reds and yellows has been shown to increase appetite, agitate or excite people, physically raise blood pressure and make people's heart beat faster. Why else, do you think that so many fast food restaurants choose bright reds and/or yellows as their main color palette for their establishment? (McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Wendy’s, In-n-Out etc.) Because bright reds and yellows are known to increase appetite (which means more sales), and to encourage quick eating by physically putting your body into a state of excitement (which means more tables turned).

Color is POWERFUL!

Every year, Pantone, the leader in the color industry for color forecasting, forecasts what the color of the year will be.  I WILL be talking about this year's color soon!  But today, I wanted to talk about last year's color of the year - Turquoise!

Turquoise is a color often associated with the ocean or an exotic place. When colors are associated with positive things like vacations or travel, they tend to have a positive effect on the person.  Turquoise symbolizes youth, strength, confidence and health. It is often associated with high ideals, intuition, creativity, emotional balance, healing, clarity of thought and communication. Turquoise is a unique color which can calm and invigorate at the same time.

So with that said...let's look at some fabulous uses for Turquoise in the design world:

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