Understanding Colour Psychology – it’s a business booster
Colour can have a massive impact on people’s moods, feelings and emotions. Understanding the different effects colour can have and how to correctly use a colour wheel can help you make sure your customer gets the most from their chosen shade. Here, Richard Palmer, Head of Trade from Valspar Trade, discusses this further…
Painters and decorators are best placed to understand the importance of colour. The ability to provide customers with a colour consultation at the start of a project can really stand you in good stead – and having the knowledge to create personalised colour schemes for your customers, can be a key point of differentiation between you and your competition.
What is room used for?
Colour can affect the way in which a room feels and how a person using it can feel. With this in mind, when you meet with a customer for the first time, you should establish what they want to use the room for and how they want to feel when using it – this is vital to make sure you get the colour scheme correct. As an example, if a person wants to create a home office, then they should opt for a brighter colour, stimulating creativity, rather than a dark and gloomy hue.
As a rule of thumb, brighter colours, like yellows, oranges and reds, can help rooms to feel inviting and cosy, whilst cool colours, such as greens, blues, or purples, can help achieve a calmer environment. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, with each colour within these two groups having its own meaning.
For example, red signifies passion, excitement and love; purple connotes nobility, glamour and mystery; blue achieves wisdom, hope and reason; and orange creates a feeling of warmth, kindness and joy. However, this isn’t an exact science and sometimes a customer’s choice can be based purely on their personal preference.
Use the Wheel
Once an initial colour has been agreed upon with a customer, it’s recommended that a colour wheel is then used to help finalise the shades. Fan decks or colour wheels can often be seen as a catalogue of colours, but they are a very handy tool for colour scheming, providing you with several options to choose from:
- Customers can choose a single colour in different tints, shades and tones
- Two colours can be chosen on opposite sides of the wheel for a contrasting or complementary scheme
- A harmonious scheme would use three neighbouring colours, creating a natural flow
- And for customers that want a high-impact, bold scheme, you could use three colours from the wheel to form a triangle.
The Rack
Available exclusively at B&Q and TradePoint, the Valspar Trade colour chip racks can act as a physical version of a colour wheel: move left or right for different tones of the same colour, or move up or down for different colours in the same palette. These chip racks are divided, with warm hues on the left-hand side of the rack and to the right of the lightbox are the cooler hues. Lightboxes help customers to see what their chosen colour would look like under different lights in their homes. There are also panels on each chip rack with off-white chips, with a hint of the colour dedicated to that specific section, as well as some deeper, accent colours for feature walls or areas customers would like to highlight.
Be a Fan of the Fan
Fan decks follow a similar principle, but are divided by colour families into warm shades, like reds and yellows, to cool shades, such as green and purple. There is one last range of colours, the off-whites, which are usually found towards the back of the fan deck. A good tip when using a fan deck: if you know the name of a colour you are looking for, you can use the index at the back of the deck. This will have the name of the colour, its reference number and its page number in the fan deck, making it easier for you to find the colour your customer is after.
By keeping these principles in mind, applying your own knowledge and taking advantage of the tools available to you, you can set yourself apart from other painters and decorators with an unbeatable service, and create personalised colour schemes for your customers, which they’ll love for many years.
Valspar Trade paint can be tinted in TradePoint and B&Q stores across the country. Additionally, customers can choose from 2,000 pre-selected colours or use Valspar Trade’s colour-matching service.
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