How do you help your customers choose colors? Do you just send them to the paint store? Bring in a designer? Spend hours looking through the fan decks and then applying samples? Color is such a personal choice and I think many of us are hesitant to guide customers, especially if we have no formal training in color. I like what Barbara Jacobs says about color in her blog, “Intentional or Incidental? Taking ‘Color’ Seriously”.
You might believe that color is only an aesthetic concern. Or, you might be one of the emerging group of design professionals who believe that our color selections can actually make a significant difference not only in what we think of a building or a place, but even in how we feel when we’re in a space. The myriad, far-reaching effects of color are detailed considerations on yet another level of the importance of our color selections.
So how do you choose, or guide your customers to choose colors?
Chris,
I couldn’t agree more about the importance of choosing colour as part of the painting process. I spend as much time improving my knowledge on colour as I do on improving my knowledge on painting. It is often overlooked by painters.
A customer’s satisfaction often comes from loving their new colours as much as it does from getting a quality job.
Thanks for commenting Heidi, do you think “us girls” have it a little easier than “the guys” when it comes to colors?
Chris, Woman usually have a higher incidence of normal color vision as compared to men, especially if you compare “white guys” to woman. Men of European backgrounds have a higher incidence of color deficient vision (“color blindness”) than men of other ethnic backgrounds . (Look up on wiki to see the comparison chart). You can also take a test called the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-hue test to see how precise you color vision is. It’s an excellent tool for knowing how good you are at color matching! Your clients might thank you for it.
Cheers,
Rebecca
Wow, great information Rebecca, thank you. So not only can we see better, but I often find (and hear from others), that women are better listeners! We need a study to compare closing ratios between men and women!
Hi Rebecca! Thanks for your great information. Is that FarberMunsell test like the Gretag-Macbeth test with the little colored discs? That was a fun test to do, it was offered at a CMG conference some years ago. I’ll check it out!.
Yes! That’s it Barbara!. I did it at CMG years ago and then later at an X-Rite training seminar. It’s really useful for people (And your employees!) even if they have less-than-perfect color vision, because you will know where you have trouble distinguishing colors in a certain range. I’ve noticed over the years that the biggest problem area is usually yellow-greens. Unfortunately your color vision starts to change after about age 50-55…but you already knew that! 🙂
Chris,
We both work with a designer (pay for the first hour) and send them to the paint store. Also refer them to several websites that you can “paint your room” online.
How well do they like the online visualizers?
Thanks for bringing that up, Chris. What do you (and others) think of that? Not as an absolute solution, I’d put it in the realm of “see how colors appear in different areas” but of course ALWAYS keeping in mind that what you see will be different — sometimes Vastly different–than the actual result.
Is it more than just “fun?”
I think it helps to open up to new ideas. To get color ideas, then narrow down to a specific color using decks or swatches. I had a homeowner who could not make a decision on a front door between red, green or black. Using the visualizer allowed me to “paint” it each color and show her. The same with accent walls.
Chris, thanks for linking my D+D blog post to your site! I know I will enjoy following your blog and reading the comments here.
Thank you Barbara! I love your blog, this one especially, http://www.integralcolor.com/imagining-knowing-envisioning-creating-and-enjoying/! You are so right, many of us just want someone else to pick the color! Like my husband says, “I don’t pick em, I just put it on the wall”. We need experts like you to help us! Thanks for the follow and I look forward to hearing more from you here!
Barbara is one of the best! And she has a great blog.
When its a special client I will go above and beyond to make sure they are happy. I can’t wait till the bathroom remodel is done so I can make a video showcasing this house.
It really is beautiful. 🙂
http://youtu.be/Xb16D08d7g8
That would make a great follow up to this blog, look forward to seeing it!
Were you involved in choosing all those colors?