This episode of the Beyond Interior Design Podcast explores people’s hesitation to use colors. It’s about our perception of the world through colors, and the impact of culture and personal experience. It also touches on color psychology and strategies for working with your clients' color preferences.
More about this: https://instituteofinteriorimpact.com/gabrielle
Go to: beyondinteriordesign.CLUB
This episode of the Beyond Interior Design Podcast explores people’s hesitation to use colors. It’s about our perception of the world through colors, and the impact of culture and personal experience. It also touches on color psychology and strategies for working with your clients' color preferences.
More about this: https://instituteofinteriorimpact.com/gabrielle
Go to: beyondinteriordesign.CLUB
interestingly it's quite often the architects who who are very hesitant regarding colors yeah but with the articles I I Architects I feel that it's a little bit a professional uh fashion or kind of professional thing that they they are almost trained to yeah only look at the form you know [Music] foreign
there must be a reason why we don't see the world in black and white right column maximalists are going to love this because this will add the Beyond layer to your designs but even if you're not a big fan of color use in your interior designs and you are more a neutral color designer architect you try to avoid any color no matter which party you are you will have some great insights today about color about your clients and about yourself my special guest of our next beyond the terror design life is Gabriella in short Gore is a middle name and color is our Fascination and vocation Gabriel is from Austria based in Vienna she has 30 years of experience working with individuals groups companies and our main areas of work are holistic color Consultants color light therapy and season interior design color Consultants she's also the founder of the color lights World projects and the author of the book in the beginning there was rats so are you open to discover your truth about Kalan because in this next episode of the Beyonce tarot design we are going to take you on a personal journey into the land of cover yes yes
good morning good afternoon good evening everyone from Vienna it's a sunny day today uh first thanks a lot Mark muskins and Sven from The Institute of interior impact for having me today very happy to be here well thank you yeah great yeah I I I saw you on LinkedIn that's our favorite platform and you were talking about color and I was like hey this is another level another level of impact of colors he's talking about something I'm curious about so uh great to have you today but um how does it start Gabriella where did it start your fascination for color well you know when I was a child I was living four years in Mexico City and that's that's known Mexico is known for a very for being a very colorful country and I think that has influenced me a lot and besides I also have a love for art and for painting actually I also do paint myself and you know life sometimes is so interesting because uh it was um by a series of coincidences that I did my first studies to become a color consultant in the US was already by the end of the 70s beginning uh no sorry but in the 80s this was and so I started off doing teleconsulting in Vienna over 30 years ago I took this um thought of every individual has a group of colors that's that's suits best to you and that expresses your personality I took that to Vienna and started my caller Consulting business here I have been a Pioneer on this field in Austria but also in Europe and I started then doing you know running seminars and also workshops on color Harmony and color psychology also for companies training seminars yeah yes yeah yeah yeah yeah your your color span freak almost because you can't imagine the life without color so why why is scholar so important well uh Carla is actually live we can't really imagine a world without colors because actually if you think of it everything living is colorful only death is pale and without color so color means life and and and beauty and joy and energy and I always like to mention your you know this saying of Goode colors are children of light and light is essential to life so because we need lights and we also live from light yeah our bodies depend on light and colors belong to light they are a part of light so they are absolutely interconnected yeah what what is Gala actually what is it well color is the portion of the visible spectrum of light reflected back from the surface if we see something for example a red material this happens because first we need light to sing a color so the light um that gets the portion of the light that gets reflected from the surface will be red and all the other colors of the spectrum get absorbed so for the vision of light we need several factors that are really important so we need um uh of course our our our eyes we need light and our individual interpretation of color also plays a big role therefore it can happen when there is something looking red for some people it could look orange and for others it could look red and this depends on your individual experience that is as unique as a fingerprint is that unique nobody nobody is experiencing color the same actually yes everyone is experiencing an unique feeling or a unique experience regarding a color and this depends of course of all the experiences we all made since our early childhood so color is a result of a single light beam or a combination of light beams so the the wavelengths of light range from 40 nanometers that's at the Violet and until the 700 nanometers at the red end and the beyond the red as we know is the infrared radiation and when we speak about colors it's always interesting or important to differentiate additive mixing and subjective color mixing additive mixing is when you mix a colored light and when you combine colored lights you obtain again the white light again so that that's the reason why the the primary colors in the additive light mixing are red green and blue yeah that's another model for the additive mixing this is always when we speak about colored light but as soon as we speak about materials about pigments and dyes we are speaking about subtractive color mixing that's something you all know maybe from paintings you know when you mix uh two um complementary colors in painting let's say red and green this forms black or a very dull dark color and that's why it's called subtractive because it subtracts light yeah yeah and in this system we have the primary colors red yellow and blue and then at the end I just want to mention very shortly in our eyes it's the cones that are responsible for our color vision and it's known there are three types of cones the short wavelength the middle wavelength and long wavelength cones and I've read recently and I find that very interesting so most of us I have three cones that enable our color vision but there are a few people in the world who have Petra chromats they have four cones that's why they see much more colors than we do so yeah beautiful super color vision it's kind of rare yeah and now now you're wishing you had those for uh president I hope but I'm having that yeah it could even be that oh yeah you never measured it maybe you have you have those uh maybe I have it yes because there's some kind of tests in the internet I don't know if they are reliable uh and and that that could be one explanation for my having colors as vocation and loving them so much yeah yeah you're doing a lot of research about color because yeah well as you said is your middle name colors everything is colorful you so what's your biggest Insight on color well color tends to be underestimated because because it's such so normal to have color everywhere so most so in our daily lives we tend not to think about it because it surrounds us yeah and in my work because I'm working as a holistic color consultant and a color light therapist I'm also a chromotherapist working with the healing power of colored light so I found out that um color impacts us actually on four levels the first level is the Aesthetics you know so most of you we work with the Aesthetics of color in design in interior design yeah design design so you know that's that's what pleases the eye uh and and and you are of course all uh familiar with color theory and things like that and you are uh good at combining colors also so that's the Aesthetics but actually colors have a deep Beauty it's not only about what our eyes feel as Beauty because there are three more levels where color impact second level is the psychology of color meaning so what what effects do color have on us humans yes and what what effects are uh what what psychological effects are known and what colors are for example best to use in a in a dining room or in a in a in a hall yeah and that's interesting because it's psychological effects do have slight cultural differences depending on where you live which country you live which area of the world you live which culture you live yes can you give an example why why other people well they are bigger fan of green for example then uh can you can you say a cultural difference yes so for example uh um how how colors are perceived and also loved depends on the nature you're living in for example I've traveled I love to travel and I've traveled several times to Australia and of course there you have a lot of seeing you have a lot of beautiful beaches and it's so it's uh so you have lots of turquoise Hues you can see there and I've noticed that in Australia you can buy more more turquoise colors whatever you want to buy yeah much more than we have but but I'm I'm living in a landlocked country of course we don't have the sea but we have some Lakes yeah so that's an interesting point it reminds me it reminds me of the of I had a client who who went to uh to Ibiza and of course if you think about it [ __ ] you think of these blue turquoise whites and when they came back from the holiday they wanted to change the whole design because they wanted more of this of this vacation feeling and all the all the emotions were all over the place I was like okay do I I need we need to take a break so I I I discussed which one did I said well let's let's meet the client back in after two weeks because now it is so well we had to change all these out to White and Blue they were a bit so it beats our minded with all the color schemes so I was like no no that's not what we're going to do because in three weeks they are back to reality maybe after a few days already and they the emotions are lowering down and they have another passion for another color or another well and and what happened then did did they stay with the turquoise and blue hues a little bit we added some because what happens we well at the Institute we have the the the philosophy form follows meaning so now they build up a really important emotion around those circles and blue and the emotion of this great times the holiday Stay Together time me time this relaxation so it's a really important factor to add that in the existing interior in the new interior design so we we just took apart from that to remind them yeah that's a very good example how how we are marked by colors because because uh it's it's quite often like that the colors that we love or we like to include into our lives uh for these ones we have very positive uh they remind us of positive uh experiences we had so that's a good example so another example for uh differences uh that can be cultural but can also be religious for example it's known that um the whole one holy color in Islam is green and that is not a surprise because if you look at the geography of countries where the Islam is predominant as a religion you have many countries that have a desert you are always looking for the Oasis that is green yeah one explanation why green is the holy color in Islamic cultures yeah so that's interesting and another example is blackened and white for as colorful morning so as you might know of in Asia and in China it's white that is used as colorful morning but that in these religions people have a belief of a possible life or transition after death and in our more uh Christian cultures it's black yeah so that that's interesting and there are some changes so color psychology is is really really fascinating and but what is really interesting to say is we are all marked by our personal experiences regarding colors so in color psychology of course you have General sayings like red is a very bright very activating very warm color yeah but there's the second aspect of this in color psychology is always what is the very personal reaction of the person so it could even happen that person people don't feel red as warm although it is warm yeah yeah people don't read as activating because they have other experiences so that's so you could hate it they could hate it really yeah yeah so that in color psychology you always have you know what is known what taught in color psychology and the individual aspect of the person regarding the color so that's that's a second level so third level is the energy of color I'm working as a color light therapist with a healing effects of colored light and so chromotherapy has grown a lot in the past 20 years it is regarded as a as a complementary energy healing method and I have a lot of amazing experiences with color healing where you we work of course with colored lights yeah so that's that's quite amazing and as I'm working also in my International Group the color lights World project with International colleagues yeah have many experiences healing experiences with clients the people are you have over 40 40 experts around the world right yeah no it's not as many but but they are between 15 and 20 uh in Africa America Europe and even Tokyo Japan yeah crazy I'm working together and running zoominas spreading the knowledge and conscience uh Consciousness about that so but yeah about about the slight healing a few months ago I took a kind of it was a it was called floating it was in a in a cabin with salty water you were literally floating and I had the light therapy on the ceiling I don't know what happened because in five minutes I was completely gone and I woke up from the jet streams that shoot the music should wake me up five minutes before the jet stream started but I was I was Knockouts so the jet skins woke me up but I don't know what happened with the color but I was so well it felt really literally healing I was I I took a nap from well maybe yeah 40 45 minutes and I was born again I was like this is quite addictive yeah well that sounds awesome because you had the multi-sensorial experience of combat finding water light and and music yeah that can be really a very strong experience of having all that together so it's it so I'm I'm personally uh you know it's my vocation working with color and light so I I just can't help it it's not okay and I'm I'm absolutely convinced that chromotherapy is going to be a healing modality in the present and in the future and if I look at the scientifically on entries in the PubMed um in the PubMed platform where you have all the science papers we can observe that in the past 30 years the number of entries about chromotherapy have grown exponentially yeah well that's that's that's good news because we we can work with color that's it's an aspect it's so that's why I would like to ask you as a designer we are working with colors but how can we how can we act on that because the last well there was a client who told us actually they didn't like colors at all a little bit but they they said I hate green and blue and normally those are the colors that's well pretty everyone almost everybody likes it but it it doesn't mean they want to use it in their interior design but why why is somebody telling you that they hate a color well let's take green and blue what can you tell about this this person so uh there are two possible explanations for that so or maybe of course they are more than two but I I can tell you about two I'm very familiar about with so the first thing could be that this person had a very bad experience with the color blue and green yeah it would be something negative that happened in the past related to these two colors could be a person related to this color some bad experiences uh could also be that the kid was forced wearing all the time blue and didn't want it could be that the person uniform for example I went to a Catholic to uh school and I had to wear many years dark blue as a uniform and I hated it for many years now I've now I'm good again with it you're healed you're here yeah but but so that's so there's something in the past that has been negative in relation to this color yeah yeah and the second explanation could also be by color psychology so as we know blue is the color of relaxation of Peace of quietness of having time yeah in chromotherapy it's also used for relaxation so it could be a sign that this person lacks all these quantities legs and legs relaxation relax uh um a peaceful surrounding so it could be that this person is far too stressed yeah they had it they had a really busy lifestyle but in the other hand you could see they are looking for this relaxation so why not use blue and green in my opinion I was like a unique blue and green to get relaxed but they they were they they hated it they went they like this warmish warm colors red and orange and it was kind of a heavy combination I was like this this strange busy lifestyle a lot of colors together so you're coming home and you're in this well yeah well that's interesting because because if you have a very busy life lifestyle many people then love you know to have a home surrounding where you can relax so you need yeah complain complementary energy of your lifestyle or your home so that you can you know have um another program you can relax yeah yeah so um but so we can we can help we can help our clients with that by asking the right questions or how can we yeah and I I I but I want to mention especially blue is known to be a color with an immense range of yeah it it has many many many many years starting with light blue to Royal Blue to dark blue to turquoise to see on whatever yeah so you could you could try and ask maybe or show the client maybe there are some Hues that that you can get familiar with it or could be petrol or or turquoise yeah so you can could offer because yeah so there are so many Blues yes and um and coming back to your question mark actually you know working with colors in interior design is a practical form of color therapy yeah because you as a designer use colors for your for your clients you are create you have the possibility of creating a beautiful harmonious surrounding and color is always energy also when we are speaking about walls or Fabrics in interior design and why is that because as soon as you see color you have a reflection of light and light is vibration so that means actually that the rooms you are creating can have a healing or effect yeah if it's if it's really done well and if it if it fits really well with your client so in it is actually a practical form of color therapy yeah so what about the what about this white minimalist houses no colors at all only natural materials complete white maybe a little bit grayish brown but that's it yeah I mean I I know there are there are people who really love that you know listen and and and who uh interestingly it's quite often the architects who who are very hesitant regarding colors yeah but with the articles I I Architects I feel that it's a little bit a professional uh fashion or kind of professional thing that they they are almost trained to yeah only look at the form you know or they that they are offering but of course and also if somebody um um is not used to color or uh uh doesn't like color you could uh offer um either light Hues as a possibility or muted colors yeah they could for example I give you some examples I could they could you could for example try um hope you know top is is a brownish gray yeah that could go well so you could offer colors that are not too dominant so or you know muted greens could work or you could try a petrol you know that's a bluish uh bluish green or maybe even Brown could could also work yeah what we what we sometimes do we we build it up with this more shades of the same of the same color so it's not this contrast thing but you get more depth and you get more well literally more depth and impact in the in the space that's yeah that's what we do so how can we yeah you said
you said we have one one I we have one layer left and so I talked about the the healing aspect the energy of color and of course you can also use this healing aspect on a spiritual level you know so color is also spirituality and why is that because color is light yeah and so and and of course there are also many many spiritual uh links uh to color in religion or in the OR in spiritual spirituality but I give you an example and that's that is actually what we are going to do at the end of this podcast so when you meditate with color that's when you can experience the the the spiritual impact so you can do a meditation you can do a chakra meditation you can do a visualization or you can simply also Imagine colors uh with closed eyes what by the way we are going to do yeah you prepare the surprise yeah yeah to be the surprise at the end yeah and and by imagining colors you connect yourself with the energy and vibration of color and that also has quite an effect yeah so but I mean we can you know because the power of our mind is is maybe also understand me estimated so yeah and create a lot only with our mind yeah I give you an example on that because you know I everything that I would recommend to my clients I test it on myself so everything is all everything is is tried out by myself yeah I give you an example you can also try it if you want but it's it's needed that you can really concentrate on a color it's known that a dark a hue of blue so kind of royal blue or dark blue is known to be a pain relief yeah it can calm pain and soothe pain yeah and one day I have been at the at the um at the dental uh doctor yeah at the dentist yeah and this one had to to remove um one inlay of my teeth and at the time I was pregnant and I refused to get any kind of you know medicine to to uh against pain and I said okay no I will try to do that without giving you you giving me a painkiller and what did I do I imagine very strongly dark blue on this spot where uh this tooth was worked on very strongly and I managed yeah of course I still felt it yeah yeah we put the paint completely away but it was manageable for me and I remember that my dentist asked me so what did you do and I said yes I used blue because blue is coming and soothing pain so it's really yeah you were using the the power of your minds and you were using the the impact levels of color on your on your brain yeah yeah that sounds good so but what is it
what is it um yeah how can I how can I say it I well let me take do another thing I was I had a I bought uh more than one year ago a beach house a holiday home and for me it was in the first place it was like I want to go neutral whites because of my in my feeling said well you go to the beach you want this white Freedom all these things but right now um we're really attached to this place I get I know how energy energizing these places I'm and I'm well I I want to adapt the place with more color what happened what is happening with me why do I wonder because normally I really do know what I want but now I have I I changed my home well I don't do that really often it it's still the same maybe five six seven years almost in the the basics because I I do know I love this I know my bigger why why I want this environment how I work with it my activities and it's functioning but this place is my mind is Shifting there what what's what's going on
um so in general we can always say that uh the interest and the love for colors is always a sign of of life and joy yeah Allah always brings Joy yeah and you and and I can say in general people who love colors generally tend to be joyful yeah and to enjoy you know the beauty of Life yeah and maybe so maybe a mark you you you have a a new openness for uh some uh New Joys in your life or some new aspects of joy in your life yeah so anyhow I would say this is a a positive sign yeah so that you open for yourself on new aspects of of the Beauties in in in life yeah well it sounds logical before because first it was my the meaning of of this holiday almost this this freedom and this kind of emptiness and space and now my new Association is with a lot of joy and people together having the best times and sunsets and all this yeah beach clubs with a lot of color so my my the whole yeah well sounds logical but yeah I'm happy to hear that it is in a good direction I like to join the playfulness yeah what colors are you are you thinking of Martin no it's it's it's literally what you see at some kind of surf Clips or a surf beach houses and you know it's all kinds of it's just turquoise and yellow and orange and some light greens it's really those surfing surfing kind of colors but yeah I started really to like them and if I wear I have different clothes that I'm wearing over there that's also straight because it's easy because I can leave the clothes there but it I'm feeling better in a yellow sweater you yellow hoodie over there than I do at home yeah oh yeah yeah so so you see you see by that that actually we adapt uh ourselves and also the colors that we like to the surrounding because on the beach in your new house you you that's another surrounding uh than at home or at your work yeah so we adapt and like to take colors that you would also see there yeah yeah I like it so what what is what is it telling because we have two categories you are some people they love they love colors or they have a set of colors that they really love and you have people with not love colors how can how can we uh yeah how can we act on that how can we work with that because we have the problem when we are designing for people sometimes to show us beautiful pictures and maybe they they don't uh mean to that it is in in the total picture that it is what they really want but they have they are looking for a kind of atmosphere and then you're using a color and they say hey I I I'm not a big fan of that color so how do we how can we work with that now we have the theory people like colors or they don't like colors how can we how can we create more impact with color use but how to how to how can I ask you to how to communicate it with your clients or how to start a conversation because it's too easy to say hey I hate blue and green and now we know that we can help them actually I'm like hey if you want to be uh sounds like if you want to be a complete or full person and we can make you like those colors yeah you have a better life well uh when when I do a color interior design a consultation I always first have a talk with a client and ask what you like and what you don't you like or I I visit their home and see what they are having what materials what colors they are having and what can be helpful is that you try to work with related colors or with groups for example yeah if um if somebody tells you a person likes let's say um let's say olive green and petrol and terracotta and brown yeah let's see these colors are muted warm colors yeah a little bit earthy yeah this person says okay she like or maybe let's take only two one one person says she likes olive green and terracotta yeah so so you know okay these are warm colors and they are muted so you can offer other warm and muted colors and that there's a high probability that they could befriend themselves with others from the group like follow that so it can be starting point is Olive and olive green and terracotta so then you could offer top maybe some light Browns you could offer even um um or maybe a petrol that's a dark bluish green you could offer various muted green Hues you can also offer pumpkin yellow yeah so you can you are expanding the time ski the the the color scheme yeah you're expanding that and you can you can experiment hey what's if I if I raise the U the U value then oh maybe this is going to Bright or this one is you can experience yeah and another example maybe if somebody says uh a person likes um black and uh bright blue and black and let's say red yeah what does this tell us this person likes very definite and very clear colors yeah so no muted no muted no no sounds like a size like a bachelor apartment to me like a single man with glass tables a lot of black leather black chairs and a red wool this one you could offer other clear and very definite and deep colors like uh so if you start from from black and red so you could offer a dark green or of course gray or dark blue or or royal blue so you definitely you're definitely offering more colors you want just add more colors to the skin too yeah so so in general if I if I uh summarize that you you listen what does the person like and does not like and from what she likes you analyze what kind of color is this and then you offer in the same color scheme similar similar colors to these yeah or if somebody says okay I like pastels yeah yeah offer other pastels yeah so that's that's well that's that's a really cool solution to to uh well when you want to have the creative freedom you can that's a kind of safe way to uh to continue with your design when you know that I'm a really curious person so I the next time I really want to know the why so I will let's find out I will come back to you uh with my experience because now I have some I have not enough touch points and I do have uh the listeners uh I've got touch points too to to feel to see how they can tap into the conversation why people like those colors and if you know the why I think it would be it's it's really easy to continue your design uh uh yeah your design version because when you know the bigger why we always say that the how is easy when you know the how when you know the why so if we tap on those all those emotions associations maybe culture and we combine that we we can take them to the next level yes and you know if your clients are open for this kind of talk actually it's really interesting for themselves yeah yeah of course yeah I don't like green Doesn't Remind me something and it can also help them change their view when they discover because I want to say something that is already uh an intro for what we're going to do yes we we we go we go to that in uh yeah in a few minutes yeah but actually we are all we humans we are all multicolored beings so we do have the energy and the meanings of all the colors of the spectrum within ourselves yes but for some reasons there are some colors we don't let into into our lives and we refuse to see or to use but it's very expanding if we re-friend these colors because because uh the the color I I don't like has some negative associations but if I discover why I have maybe the chance to heal that and then you know this color with all the positive energy and the positive meanings comes back into my life yeah that sounds great re-friendly with color yeah yeah yeah yeah well I think it's time to uh to go to the well this special element we had another visualization with uh Ruben moly Camp a few uh well months uh months ago visualization on manifesting there was really cool to do so if you if you missed that podcast please go back and have a look Ruby mobile come manifesting your life design your own life right now we are going to do it with well we're going to a personal College Journey let's call it that way discovering your own color idea so well first of all I am I would like to thank you for this um for this podcast this uh I had a lot of questions I have more more material to work with on color more questions to ask to my clients so it will definitely uh well we're leaning in an even more smooth and uh yeah quick design process so that's really cool we can add an extra layer on uh on the Beyond part of Gala so thanks for that uh if people uh well if you are attending live uh Gabriella will stay here for other questions uh for sure because you might have questions after the visualization we are going to do so uh she's right here and uh otherwise thanks for listening again see you in the next live or listen to the to the next uh podcast episode so uh thanks for that well Gabriella give it a go all right all right so uh thanks Mark and thanks for having me and now we are on a color journey I invite you to so first what I want to mention is again we are all multi-colored beings and and color is a very fast language it's a language that is as fast as light and what I'm going to do now is I'm going to ask you a question and I want to uh encourage you please take the first answer that comes to your mind okay so again so I want to encourage you to take the answer that comes up to your mind take the first answer that comes here all right we will start now and uh please take a comfortable position where you are seated and I want to ask you please close your eyes
and take a deep breath and feel yourself how you are sitting here and then comes the question for you if I was a color what color would I be
and please take the first color that comes up take the first one
and yet and now please imagine that you immerse yourself into that color
so this color now completely surrounds you you are part of the color you can feel this color sense the color and take the time to enjoy this color
how do you feel now when you are mixed in midst of this color you have chosen
and now comes the next important message uh important question is there a message your color has ready for you your color is able to speak to you and just listen whatever comes is okay maybe your color has something to tell you a message a tip a hint whatever
you won't have to do anything only listen and accept this little present of your color
and now Breathe Again and imagine you take this little present that your color has given you with you into your Here and Now into your daily life
all right so you received your presence and now just be aware you are completely in the here and now again and when you are landed please open your eyes again
foreign
I wish and I hope that you had a lovely experience and maybe the color you received as answer has given you something interesting to think about