Kristen Loves Design

So I read a fascinating article in the Sunday New York Times this week about a book called The Color Revolution that talks about how American manufacturers used color from the mid-1800s until the mid-20th century. How do you feel about color and color theory? I’ve always been completed fascinated by color – especially an assortment of colors, like a box of crayons, a rainbow, or my all-time favorite, items organized by color. I’ve actually played around quite a bit with the idea of changing around this blog to be categorized by color – maybe one day! I’m particularly interested in the idea that color is meant to affect your mood and ultimately your purchasing decisions. I’ve read plenty of Paco Underhill books about why we buy what we buy, but it never occurred to me that color influences our minds just as much as any other factor in a store, or anywhere else for that matter.

Image courtesy of Amazon

And then I started to think about another fascinating article I read in Slate last month about how color forecasters help Pantone choose their color of the year and also create a color story for the seasons to come. Of course re-reading that article makes me chuckle since the same book by Regina Lee Blaszczyk is mentioned (although I hardly noticed it then since it’s not the focus of the article). Of course, I am completely obsessed with Pantone colors and I long for the day I can justify spending hundreds of dollars just to own a Pantone paint deck so I can look at it all day long! Pantone produced a wonderful book just last year about the last 100 years of color and provides a context for social events and trends with the color from that period in time – which of course sounds completely amazing!

Image courtesy of Amazon

What do you think? Do you find yourself fascinated with color? Ever wonder how/why it’s used somewhere? Spill it!