By: Jackie Jordan, Director of Color Marketing for Sherwin-Williams
Whether you are a do-it-yourselfer or a home designer, finding inspiration can be one of the most important, yet most challenging tasks in your day-to-day life.
The Altitude Design Summit provides the perfect opportunity to cultivate new ideas and inspiration, especially with color. Color can greatly impact our moods. Attitudes can be influenced by what we surround ourselves with every day. Reds and oranges energize us, while greens and blues can help calm us. It is easy to get comfortable with working in a one-color family, but sometimes a radical change can completely revolutionize our design and outlook.
Here are the top five places to find new color inspiration this year.
Vintage and Antique Shops
Vintage stores are full of classic color inspiration. Think taupes, mauves, blush pinks, grays, light and deep greens and violets, all of which are reminiscent of vintage floral patterns. These understated, yet undeniably feminine, colors can be applied to a bathroom or living room to create a relaxing oasis. To accent these colors, you can also find vintage whites, blues, aquas and greens from vintage pottery pieces and hues from painted metals and distressed paint.
Urban Environments
City environments often evoke masculine neutrals, challenging us to think about different values of black and white. Yet, urban spaces such as New York City or Los Angeles exhibit contrasts with startling pops of bright color from neon shop signs, yellow dashes on pavement and graffiti murals. Each pop of color, on its own or combined, can create a vibrant, energetic space.
Farmers Markets
Farmers markets provide the perfect space to consider highly saturated colors. Whether it’s the deep, rich purple of an eggplant, or the ripe, red of a tomato, fruits and vegetables can provide inspiration for warm, summer color palettes. These bold colors can be found in Sherwin-Williams Color Forecast 2015 Unrestrained palette, which celebrates a carefree spirit. The palette features saturated primary hues, sunny yellow, lively turquoise and bright blue, as well as black and white.
Nature
If you need an excuse to travel, this is it. A recent Sherwin-Williams survey of homeowners revealed that 56 percent of respondents find color inspiration from nature. We’re not surprised! There are endless combinations of colors and textures in different global environments, including the fluid blues of an ocean or a forest full of fall foliage. To incorporate these natural hues in a space, look no further than Sherwin-Williams Chrysalis palette from Color Forecast 2015. The colors of Chrysalis evoke a calm oasis – a place to pause and find balance.
Pinterest is the perfect inspirational tool, where you can see unique ways others are using color. In fact, a Sherwin-Williams quarterly survey of do-it-yourselfers found that more than a third said Pinterest is an option for finding color inspiration.
So no matter what the source, challenge yourself to find new color inspiration this year. You might be surprised how using unexpected colors can completely change a design for the better.
Join Us for #AltChat and Chance to Win $100 Sherwin-Williams gift card
Where do you go for color inspiration? Are you bold in your use or more restrained? Join the Alt community and Sherwin-Williams Wednesday January 7th at 9AM PST/12PM EST to talk about your plans for using color in 2015 and your sources for creative inspiration. Two lucky #AltChat participants will win a $100 Sherwin-Williams gift card. Here is how you can win:
- Follow along by searching for the #AltChat hashtag on your favorite Twitter client live on January 7th from 9AM – 10AM PST/12PM – 1PM EST, if you can.
- Participate by answering questions posed by @AltSummit and including these three hashtags: #SWColor #AltChat and #AltSummit. Every tweet with all three hashtags will be entered to win one of two $100 gift cards from Sherwin-Williams. You can tweet once or tweet 17 times, each is another chance to win.
- Unable to join the conversation live? Contribute when you can! All tweets between 9AM PST and 5PM PST on January 7th related to color inspiration and using the three hashtags #SWColor #AltChat and #AltSummit will be entered to win. You must use all three hashtags.
Two winners will be randomly selected and announced on Twitter Thursday before noon PST. The winners will also be listed here.
New to Twitter Chats? Review this post on how to join a Twitter Chat before you dive in!
This post was sponsored by Sherwin-Williams.
