A Literature Review on Color Theory in Interior Design

This was a literature review that I wrote in a previous research class in my program. I still really love this topic and have a lot of interest in how color and psychology influence Interior Design. I would love to study this more in the future.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF COLOR CHOICE ON INTERIOR DESIGN

THE IMPACT OF COLOR ON EMOTIONS

When it comes to Interior Design, color choice is one of the most important aspects of building a space. Color theory plays a huge role in Interior Design in making a space look more cohesive, but it has a second side to its importance. Color can affect people psychologically by influencing their emotional response. Certain colors may not have detailed emotional responses but broad responses such as basic positive or negative feelings or general associations with things like relaxation or contentment have been found (Kaya & Epps, 2004; Olguntürk, 2016). Because of the importance of color in Interior Design, there is also the link that the color of interior spaces has this same influence on the people who are experiencing them. Interior Design is a service job, and its purpose is to improve the wellbeing of people through their surroundings. Because of this, color and its mental impact on people need to be evaluated and taken into consideration when designers are making decisions. Interior Design in and of itself is a very broad discipline and can cover many different types and functions of a space. Because of this, it can be said that certain colors may be more effective in certain spaces than others based on the intended purpose and use of any given room. Given the importance of color on people’s wellbeing and mood the current paper will review how certain colors influence emotional response and how color can influence and improve the consumers experience in a space.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF COLOR ON THE CONSUMER

Color has been shown in the past to have effects on people’s emotions. It can influence people’s sense of calm or help to increase someone’s anger. In a general sense, it could just help to influence someone feel more positive emotions or negative. This is something that is fairly personal from person to person if someone really hates a color, they will probably have a bias to

have negative emotions regardless of the color’s general connotation. In spite of this, there have still been studies that have demonstrated how colors can generally have different effects on people emotionally. Many studies have found that in some capacity color has an impact on people psychologically (AL‐Ayash et al., 2016; Kaya & Epps, 2004; Olguntürk, 2016). Each of these studies found that in some capacity different colors led to different responses in people. But each had some interesting, unique results as well. In the study done by Kaya and Epps (2004) they studied a group of 98 college students and were able to figure out what colors people reacted positively and negatively to. Their method consisted of them showing the students 10 chromatic and 3 achromatic color swatches in a random order and then asked for the students’ immediate one word response to what they saw. One of the conclusions of the study found that green and yellow exhibited the highest number of positive responses. The color green was associated with words such as calmness, happiness and comfort and was viewed to represent nature. Yellow was associated with excitement and liveliness and was viewed to represent the sun. This study also found that gray was seen as the most negative color shown and was commonly associated with depression, boredom, and tiredness (Kaya & Epps, 2004). Some of the findings from this study were similarly supported by a literature review done by Olguntürk (2016) that consolidated a lot of past research on color theory that found common results. This review focuses specifically on the effect of colors but one of the common results found was that green is frequently associated with nature and elicits common emotional responses one would expect from being in nature. Additionally, the color yellow was viewed as a ‘warm’ color and made the viewer experience perceptions of warmth which follows its association with the sun (Olguntürk, 2016). Both of these results are directly reflected in the results from Kaya and Epps (2004). This was only a literature review though, and there have been some studies on color that

pertain specifically to Interior Design. Yildirim and colleagues (2011) presented 290 Interior Architecture students with 3D rendered images of Living Rooms with only the color changed and asked them to associate words from adjective pairs to the rooms. This study found that warm colors generally produce more simulating emotions whereas cool colors produce more peaceful emotions. Cool colors tended to not be particularly exciting to the viewer but made them feel calmer (Yildirim et al., 2011). A study by AL-Ayash and colleagues (2016) explained some of the physical responses to different colors. This research involved 24 participants that tested in front of 6 different colored panels (vivid and pastel primary colors). This was done to see how study environment can influence a student’s performance. This study found that hue indicated changes in the students’ heartrate. In both the red and yellow tests, students experienced higher heartrate whereas in the blue test, heartrate slowed (Al‐Ayash et al., 2016). This can reasonably be viewed as the physical manifestation of the common trend of warm colors being more stimulating and arousing to the viewer. This trend of higher arousal was upheld in a study done by Wilms and Oberfeld (2018) in which 62 participants were shown a 3D chromatic spaces with changing hues and saturation levels. They tracked heartrate and were asked to rate their emotional state after viewing a space. One of the results of this study found that saturated colors have the highest arousal rating with Red being the most stimulating and blue being the least (Wilms & Oberfeld, 2018). This uphold previous findings of bright, warm colors being the most stimulating and cool tones being the most calming. As stated before, there were many common results from these studies such as the fact that blue is seen as calming and red is seen as stimulating along with the color green’s association with nature and yellow with the sun. These general trends are held up over much of the research on this topic.

IMPORTANCE OF COLOR IN INTERIOR DESIGN

As shown, color choice influences a person’s emotional response. Now, this can be linked to Interior Design by stating that the color of a space will have a similar effect on a person that they would experience when just viewing a swatch of the color. In the study discussed before by AL-Ayash and colleagues (2016), another one of the results found was that students saw the color red (whether vivid or pale) as the most unsuitable for studying and learning out of all of the colors they were presented with. (Al‐Ayash et al., 2016). This demonstrates the strong importance of color when designing a space. The idea that color choice can end up being an important decision Interior Designers have to make is a common finding upheld by different studies (Cho & Lee, 2017; Costa et al., 2018; Savavibool, 2016; Tantanatewin & Inkarojrit, 2018). It has consistently been shown that color choice in design can help to uphold the purpose of the space. On the opposite end of the color spectrum from red, the color blue is commonly viewed as the color most suitable for learning environments. In a study by Costa and colleagues (2018) students living in six identical student residence halls where each interior of a certain building was painted in monochromatically were studied to find the influence their surroundings had on them. Four hundred and forty-three students that lived in these halls participated in the study where they gave information such as general color preference, how their surroundings made them feel, and their mood. The results of this study showed that students preferred the blue interior followed by green and then violet (the cool colors). The color least preferred by the students was red (Costa et al., 2018). This study was very interesting because students were not just shown a color, but they lived in that color for an extended period of time. And, once again, red was considered the worst color to facilitate learning and blue the best. This being a result that was also shown in the study by AL-Ayash and colleagues (2016). One can reasonably conclude that a designer working in an education space should avoid red and try to use more blue in their design.

An interesting aspect of this research is that warm colors may be preferred in spaces with other purposes. In a study done by Tantanatewin and Inkarojrit, (2018) 496 people evaluated 11 computer-generated restaurant scenes with different interior colors and were asked what their emotional response to the image was and if they would want to enter that establishment. The result of this study found that people preferred the restaurants with higher value and warmer tone. Specific colors that were positively responded to by participants were light pink and orange (Tantanatewin & Inkarojrit, 2018). The difference in the study of the restaurants and the study of the student dormitories is that the two spaces have completely different purposes. The needs of the consumer are different, and the way different colors affect them are very important to the effectiveness of the Interior Design.

Other studies have focused on different interior purposes and found contrasting color preferences once again. In a literature review done by Savavibool (2016), 40 different peer-reviewed papers that fit certain established criteria pertaining to color preferences in the workplace were evaluated to find common results. One of the conclusions of this review was that generally, employees preferred a colorful workplace vs. one was that achromatic. In this situation, red was seen to enhance cognitive performance and blue enhanced creative performance (Savavibool, 2016). In a study done by Cho and Lee (2017) color choice and its effect on perceived luxury in a retail environment was studied. The research was done in a three-step method. First, 50 retail images were compiled, and six professionals rated the highest and least luxurious interiors. From there, the three most common colors were pulled from the 4 most luxurious and 4 least luxurious. Next, two 3D renderings were shown to 30 students to find

which were considered the most high-end and low-end. Lastly, an online survey was administered to 218 consumers who then evaluated their perceptions of the interiors. This study found that people preferred the interior of the store with the closest color combination vs. a more contrasting color palette (Cho & Lee, 2017). With a retail space, first impressions are very important to entice consumers who are using split second decisions whereas an employee is spending an extended period of time in an office space. These two studies are interesting because they have conflicting results. On one hand, in a workplace, colorful palettes are preferred but a retail space seems to be more functional with a monochromatic scheme. The difference in these studies is the purpose of the space and the importance of differing consumer needs.

CURRENT STUDY

As has been seen, color has a significant effect on emotions within people. Different colors elicit different responses and there seems to be a general trend with this. Additionally, color, and its important role in Interior Design, has an impact on a person’s surroundings. With this, Interior Designers need to evaluate what they know about color and their emotional affiliations when designing a space to make something as functional as possible for the wellbeing of the consumer. There is a gap in existing research on this topic though. In most studies, only primary colors and their combinations are studied. Color choice is more nuanced than just blue or red or yellow, the combination of colors along with their hue and saturation also are factors in emotional response and should be taking into consideration in a study. Saturation, Tone, and color mixes are all important aspects of appearance and also need to be evaluated. Different spaces (i.e., schools, restaurants, stores, offices, and residential spaces) and their different purposes should be reevaluated with a larger variety of colors to gauge whether a change in value changes the emotional response of the consumer and whether the trends of preferred color

change with this larger variety. This information is essential to an Interior Designer as the purpose of the job is to create the best possible space for the consumer and an element of this is color choice. This will also help to associate certain color preferences with certain space purposes which can help to guide design choices in the future as well. From our review of literature, we hypothesize that trends in color preference of a space align with the purpose of the space and similarly purposed spaces will result in similar color preferences.

REFERENCES

AL‐Ayash, A., Kane, R. T., Smith, D., & Green‐Armytage, P. (2016). The influence of color on student emotion, heart rate, and performance in learning environments. Color Research & Application, 41(2), 196-205. https://doi.org/10.1002/col.21949

Cho, J. Y., & Lee, E. J. (2017). Impact of interior colors in retail store atmosphere on consumers’ perceived store luxury, emotions, and preference. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 35(1), 33-48. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887302X16675052

Costa, M., Frumento, S., Nese, M., & Predieri, I. (2018). Interior color and psychological functioning in a university residence hall. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1580. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01580

Kaya, N., & Epps, H. H. (2004). Relationship between color and emotion: A study of college students. College student journal, 38(3), 396-405.

Olguntürk N. (2016) Psychological Color Effects. In: Luo M.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8071-7_230

Savavibool, N. (2016). The effects of colour in work environment: A systematic review. Environment-Behaviour Proceedings Journal, 1(4), 262-270. https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v1i4.167

Tantanatewin, W., & Inkarojrit, V. (2018). The influence of emotional response to interior color on restaurant entry decision. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 69, 124-131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2017.09.014

Wilms, L., & Oberfeld, D. (2018). Color and emotion: Effects of hue, saturation, and brightness. Psychological research, 82(5), 896-914. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-017-0880-8

Yildirim, K., Hidayetoglu, M. L., & Capanoglu, A. (2011). Effects of interior colors on mood and preference: comparisons of two living rooms. Perceptual and motor skills, 112(2), 509-524. https://doi.org/10.2466/24.27.PMS.112.2.509-524