This is the time of year (curiously, when it is most difficult to use natural ventilation to disperse paint fumes), when people start to think about painting walls. And that naturally leads to the question, “What color should they be?” Scientists have learned a lot about how humans experience color, and their findings can help answer that question.
Regularly in this column, I’ve talked about how color saturation and brightness influence mental state. Colors that are not very saturated but relatively light, such as sage greens with lots of white mixed into them, are great options for spaces where people need to think creatively or do concentration-intense knowledge work. Colors that are more saturated but less bright, such as kelly greens, are good selections for places where people need to be more active.
The effects of seeing Baker-Miller pink, also known as drunk tank pink and bubble gum pink, have been extensively researched over the years, and findings are mixed about its ability to calm humans. But that confusion is probably because people have actually tested responses to a number of pinks. Those that are not as saturated and lighter can be expected to calm those seeing them, based on the findings reported in the last paragraph. It also seems possible that seeing Baker-Miller pink, in particular, may influence us in a special way. Recently, research has shown that women looking at the color pink feel more optimistic than women not looking at something pink.
Greens, in general, are good for office spaces; research has linked looking at them to more creative thinking. Seeing reds such as the ones used for teachers’ pens and pencils, even briefly, degrades analytical performance.
We also get a burst of strength from seeing red, so it can be a good choice for spaces where people need to do physical work or are exercising – which is probably handy because seeing warm colors also stimulates our appetite.
We’re drawn towards warm colors, so they’re great options for the ends of long hallways. We perceive that a space is significantly warmer physically when it features warm colors, while the opposite is true when cool colors predominate. Therefore warm colors can be a good color to paint the walls in a space that tends to be cold, or one that you would like to feel a little warmer than it actually is, such as an entryway to a building in a cool part of the world. The reverse goes for cool colors.
Designers generally know that walls that are lighter colors seem a little further away than they actually are, while the reverse is true for walls painted darker colors. Designers are often, however, unfamiliar with research unveiling the fact that time seems to pass more slowly in spaces featuring warm colors than in ones that showcase cooler ones – so it’s great if waiting areas emphasize cooler colors. It’s also easier for people to find their way through cooler colored spaces than ones featuring warmer shades; if you’re working on a building with a maze-like layout, paint those hallways cool colors.
The best colors for a space depend on more than aesthetics!
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.