Business Edition #04 Interior and Color Part 1

When I introduce myself to people I meet for the first time and say that I work with colors, I ask them what colors will be popular this year. I often get asked this question. I would guess that you are referring to the colors of clothing, but there is actually a concept similar to trendy colors in interior design as well. This is an area where you don't have to worry about trending colors as much as you do with clothes, but if you look at it over a long period of time, colors definitely change. This time, I would like to summarize how to grasp colors in interior spaces.

interior customary colors

Think about the colors actually used in the interior spaces of your home. There should be few flashy colors, and an overwhelming majority of sober colors.

Figure 1 Common interior colors

This diagram shows the colors commonly used in recent interiors on top of NCD's NUE&TONE system (a color scale based on the Munsell system; for details, refer to the color system in Part 2 of the Basics). I saw a pattern. Specifically, there are four items that occupy a large area: flooring, carpet, wallpaper, curtains, and walls. Looking at this, you can see that the volume of hues from YR to Y (yellow-red, yellow) is large. In clothing, there are more variations of blue, such as denim and navy blue in suits, but in interiors, there is an overwhelming weight in warm colors. I think the main reason for this is that interior spaces require peace and relaxation, and the color of wood fits perfectly into this volume zone. It can be said that the interior space is entirely composed of colors that match the color of the wood. In addition, it hardly appears in the naked tones, the familiar tones have an overwhelming volume, and the remaining tones appear in some of the bright tones.

Figure 2 Volume tone by item

To make it easier to understand, if you check in Figure 2 which tone has the highest volume for each item, you can see that the volume shifts from light to dark in the order of wallpaper, curtains, carpet, and flooring. I think it will be. The general theory is that the ceiling is bright and the floor is dark.

7 basic interior colors

Among the customary interior colors, the colors that appear most frequently are called basic interior colors, and are specifically seven colors: white, ivory, beige, light brown, dark brown, gray, and black. When you hear the name of a color, you may be surprised at how ordinary and plain it seems, but in reality, when it comes to interior colors, subtle color differences within a narrow range are very important. Even within colors that look similar at first glance, slight differences in hue, brightness, and saturation can have a big impact on trends.
Among these, white, ivory, and black are clear colors and are called seishiro, but black is a heavy color, so its use is limited to accents. On the other hand, beige, light brown, dark brown, and gray are cloudy and gentle colors and are called turbid colors.
This time, I would like to focus on the differences between white and ivory, which are similar but different colors from among these seven basic colors.

The difference in white is the difference in taste.

Pure white, which is said to be pure white among all whites, has a brightness of 9.5 and has no saturation at all, so it matches well with cold and shiny materials such as glass and stainless steel, giving it a stylish and modern impression. On the other hand, ivory is a color name derived from elephant tusk, so it is a warm color with yellow undertones. The hue is centered around 2.5Y, the brightness is around 9, and the saturation is around 1.5. Because it has a slight yellow tint, it matches natural materials such as wood, rattan, and cork, giving it a natural look.

Photos 1 & 2 are TOTO sanitary ware. ``White with a strong bluish tone matches inorganic materials such as glass and metal.'' ``Pastel ivory with a strong yellow tone matches warm materials such as plaster, tiles, and wood materials.'' , the use of the two types of colors is clearly shown.

When considering the direction of interior design, I pay attention to the changes in these two colors. To give you a general overview of the changes, in the 90's most interiors were natural with light flooring, so ivory was used, which has a strong yellow tone and now looks like a cream color. In the 2000s, simple modernization began, and about 10 years ago, when it reached its peak, pure white was often used for wallpaper, kitchen door materials, storage surface materials, etc. In line with this, refrigerators and air conditioners have all turned white all at once. Since the mid-2000s, as natural tastes have returned, soft white with a yellow tint has started to be used again instead of pure white. However, the mainstream has changed from the highly saturated ivory of the 1990s to an off-white tone with a slight yellow tinge. In this way, if we look at the direction of white, we can grasp the direction of modernization and naturalization.

Photo 3 The natural space that takes advantage of the current wood quality is not pure white, but an off-white color with low saturation but with a slight yellow tinge. From the Sekisui House homepage.

When creating the actual space, I would like you to carefully consider the color white when deciding on the color of the sanitary ware in the bathroom or the color of the lace curtains to be used inside the drapes. Even if the color name is similar to white, it is important to take advantage of the subtle differences in your coordination.

July 7, 2015

Text by Japan Color Design Institute