Colour Palettes

In the past, we have discussed examples of colour palettes for office. We have also discussed examples of colour schemes used within interior design. One office may vary greatly from another in its purpose though. An office may be a reception area for a holiday park, it could be a car dealer’s office, a developer company and many more.

An office is in fact quite a broad term and the subject of interior design is as broad as customers’ needs. Today we would like to discuss a subject of early decision making when choosing a colour palette. We will be focusing on consideration of potential colour palettes for a beauty salon or spa design during this early decision-making process.

First of all, let’s not get overwhelmed with the amount of options. It is important to start with some visual references for your design while at the same time consider the purpose of the building. This enables you to imagine the real outcome a lot clearer.

Because the palette we are considering is for beauty salon or spa we will perform a small experiment in relation to these. As an experiment, let us start by thinking of potential words in response to the word BEAUTY.

Words that may come to mind are; air, delicate, cosmetics, fragrance, white, natural, clean, clear, blue, pink, soft. Your responses may vary.

When you do have your words written down, look at the visual representation of those words. Ideas will spark instantly through looking at the images. That in itself may be enough to sharpen your idea of what you want the colour palette to be. When you will select your final choices, it will become your visual reference guide, it will become your colour palette. It is worth remembering about colour schemes at this point. This is in order to not get carried away by choosing too many colours. Keep it simple.

You can perform the same exercise by choosing to respond to the word SPA. This will generate other visual references.

We can look closer at generated words in order to figure out what your colour palette can be. From the list above, let us take, for instance, the word cosmetics. You can look at the examples of cosmetics packaging, for instance. This is in order to analyse what colours are used there and why. First of all, you may notice that majority of packaging is made mainly in white colour, with addition of smaller amounts of one or two other colours, usually soft and light hues. Quite often text and logo of the brand is printed in black/silver or gold. Those colour palettes are not too complicated and kept in fresh bright hues. It means that these colours will portray feelings of cleanliness, freshness and youth. These could as well be good colours to go for as a base for beauty salon.

The above analysis would generally exclude fragrance packaging. Fragrance packaging is often designed in darker colours.

Having this as an example, you can go back to your other words on the list and consider colour scheme for your chosen one or two colours in order to expand on the idea.

If, for instance, you will take the word air as an example, you will most likely think of clear images of a blue sky, light clouds or air swirls in white or semi-transparent colour. The decision is to put these colour findings next to each other and decide which colour palette works best as a beauty salon or spa design.

More general advice would be to remember the building purpose when choosing your colour palette. Consider if your visual responses match the purpose of the space and adjust your idea if needed. Because both spa and beauty salon are places to relax, remember soothing colours. This means cool colours such as blue, green, white and/or pastel colours. Many people will appreciate addition of warm colours as well, as an element of cosiness and warmth in the space. Feeling of cosiness could also be created by the use of natural decorations such as sand, plants or wood. Other option could also be the use of warm, atmospheric lighting.

Initial idea can be adapted to match different styles. Once the step of choosing colour palette is undertaken and decided, the rest is easier. The rest is to stick with the plan. When final decorations overwhelm you with the amount of possible choices, have your colour palette with you and remember what is the feeling you would like to portray. Ask yourself if a particular object will do that for you and reflect accordingly.  

Enjoy the fun of designing.