In preparation for an upcoming lecture at KLC School of Design, I’ve been taking a trip down a colourful memory lane re-visiting popular colour palettes that reflected important social changes over the last few decades.

Trend forecasters help retailers develop product ranges that tap in to key seasonal colour and design trends influenced by social and cultural directions. But, tracing colour evolution from decade to decade and observing how certain colours were inspired and reflected the ‘mood’ or climate at the time, can also provide a fascinating insight on what might be next ?

Below (and in the next couple of posts to follow) I’ve selected a couple of key influences synonymous with that era referencing similar Pantone colours, starting with the 1960s.

1960s – the decade of the ‘Hippy’ and ‘Pop Art’ as typified by artist Andy Warhol. An expansion of (drug fuelled) visual awareness inspired creativity and manifested in ‘psychedelia’ with its eye-popping, intense colours. Helpfully, developments in petro-chemicals, plastics and synthetic dye technology meant that a wider range of colours could be processed using artificial pigments.

1960s - A period of Brit Cool as the quirky, eccentric modern style of  British designers; Mary Quant, Barbara Hulanicki, Ossie Clark and Zandra Rhodes were inspired by (among other things) Art Nouveau, Middle East, Art Deco and India, influencing a more muted, warm colour palette.

(My thanks for inspiration to Pantone ‘The 20th Century in Colour‘)

You might also like to read…Jubilee Inspired Colour

Last week I had the opportunity to visit a recently completed project that I worked on last summer. Applewood is a respite care facility built in the community in Tadworth, Surrey by Surrey County Council for children and young people with disabilities aged 5-18 years. Accompanying me was Susannah Mathieson, National Account Services Manager for Dulux who was interested to see how I had used colour on this project.

When working with colour psychology the key to selecting a palette of colours is to identify the ‘colour personality’ of the environment. What is it used for – who will be using the space and how? A family of colours is then selected accordingly that best captures, expresses and supports the required qualities of the environment. The brief from Pat Williams, manager of Applewood was to create a bright, lively, fun and ‘funky’ living accommodation that would inspire the young guests who will be able to stay at the facility for between 2 and 6 nights

To convey these qualities and the feel that Applewood wanted to create I specified colours that had warm, clear and bright characteristics. The ‘personality’ of this family of fresh spring colours captures perfectly the qualities of youth, vitality, energy, creativity, activity, motivation and fun! It also identifies particularly well with professions, institutions or businesses linked with children and ‘youth’.

I then looked at the individual colours to select the ones which would best support an activity or create an ambience within each particular room. For example in the recreation rooms where the youngsters would be perhaps socialising and conducting activities I specified yellow to encourage optimism and confidence. Other colours I specified for the Applewood palette were green, turquoise, purple, orange and blue. Each of these colours selected contribute to an upbeat and engaging environment both for the young people staying at Applwood and for the staff working there.

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