Colour and Interior Design: Mastering Design Excellence

Build on your visual colour skills and increase your confidence for creating colour palettes for your interior projects.

Would you like to design more effectively, accelerate the process from concept to implementation, and enhance your confidence in choosing colours?

While the topic of colour theory is not new, there are few approaches to be found that mix practical application with real insight and understanding of how colour impacts how we feel and how we behave within our environments – bringing the subject together in one exciting combination of science and art.

This course offers a clear set of working methods combined with an insight in to how we respond to colour and the ways in which it affects us, designed to inform and educate and enable to you use colour in a more powerful and creative way.

These are powerful tools and techniques, which, once you learn them, will help you to develop a greater skill and confidence for working with colour. This knowledge will significantly enrich your design choices and guide your decision-making process. By the end of this course, you’ll be equipped to deliver stunning interior designs with a solid rationale, feeling assured in your presentations to clients.

This course is suitable for:

• Interior designers/decorators interested in learning a little more about colour

• Design students

• Anyone who wants to learn about colour for interiors for their own home

How you will benefit:

1. Identify and Classify Colours: Gain the ability to discern different qualities and characteristics of colours and categorise them into harmonious colour groups.

2. Develop Creative Tools: Create a personalised tool to inspire and guide you in crafting unique and captivating colour palettes.

3. Plan Colour Schemes: Master various approaches to planning effective and aesthetically pleasing colour schemes.

4. Understand Personality Preferences: Learn how different colours appeal to various personality types and how to tailor your designs accordingly.

5. Influence Room Ambience: Discover how to use colour strategically to positively affect the mood and atmosphere of any space.

6. Enhance Emotional Impact: Understand the psychological effects of colour and use this knowledge to create spaces that evoke desired emotions and behaviours.

7. Boost Design Confidence and Client Communication: Confidently make and present colour choices with a science-backed rationale, and achieve a more collaborative and successful project outcome.

What We’ll Cover:

Module 01: Introduction

• Introduction and overview with course author, designer and colour consultant expert Bernay Laity

Module 02: Colour Theory

In this section we will be learning about:

• Colour terms – the different words and phrases used to describe the different aspects of colour and its characteristics

• Colour Models – what they are and the difference between them

• The Colour Wheel – the concept of basic colour theory

Module 03. Cool and Warm Colours

The nuances between different colours are often very subtle, yet can completely change the impact of a design. In this section we’ll be learning how to identify this first characteristic of colour, which will help to build your skills for confidently selecting colours for your design projects.

• What is meant by cool and warm colours?

• How to tell the difference between them

• Practice activity

Module 04. Clear and Muted Colours

In this section we’ll be learning how to identify this second characteristic of colour, which will help to build your skills for confidently selecting colours for your design projects.

• What is meant by muted and clear colours?

• How to tell the difference between them

• Practice activity

Module 05. The Harmonising Colour Groups

In this section we discover more about the composition of individual colours and how this is integral to creating harmonious colour combinations for your projects.

• How colour characteristics like warm, cool, clear, and muted can be divided into four distinct groups

• How colours create visual harmony or disharmony based on whether they share similar characteristics within their group

Module 06. Classifying Colours into Four Harmonising Groups

In this section, you’ll gain proficiency in categorising colours into their respective groups and ultimately build your confidence for coordinating colour schemes.

• Tips for classifying colours

• Practice activity

Module 07: Colour Psychology and Interior Design

In this section we look at what we mean by the term “colour psychology” and how this relates to our understanding of the four Colour Groups and in turn, how this affects personality preferences for not just colour, but shape, form and style. We also take a look at some of the effects of colour on mood and behaviour.

Understanding these principles will add another powerful layer to your design decisions!

• The four Colour Groups – key personality traits and preferences for shapes, finishes, forms and styles

• Key positive effects of individual colours

Module 08. Practical Design Elements: Evaluating the Room

In this section we take a look at the first step when starting your project – which is to evaluate the room or space you will be designing.

• Which practical features and elements to take into consideration

• What you need to know about light and how it affects your colour choices

• How colour affects the perception of space

Module 09. Creating Your Colour Scheme

This section breaks down the process for planning a colour scheme in to simple, practical steps based on colour theory and professional experience.

• What makes an interesting colour scheme? How top designers use colour

• Selecting the Colour Group from which to base your design

• How to find inspiration for creating a colour scheme

• How to use the colour wheel for inspiration

• Top tips for successful colour schemes

• “Risk free” experimenting with colour

Module 10. Colour and Commercial Interiors

In this section we look at how to apply the concept of the four Colour Groups and colour psychology to commercial design projects.

• What is a commercial interior?

• How Colour Psychology can be applied to commercial interior design

Discover Colour

NB. Both the Colour Essentials and Colour Psychology Principles courses form a two-part programme designed to give you a more in-depth foundation for understanding how to work with colour and influence behaviour through the principles of colour psychology. The completion of both courses is therefore recommended for a more thorough learning experience in applying colour psychology to design.