Color is one of the best elements of design that you can work to your advantage if you know a few basic characteristics and terms. Knowing the trends in colors in your market area gives you a distinct advantage by keeping you on the forefront of design. Fashion conscious customers like to have the latest colors in their closet and displayed in their homes. Even those customers who may not make major color changes in their home décor every year still want to display touches of the newest color influences. To understand color better, here are a few terms to help you better understand your best friend in design.
TREND LINGO
FAD: Any form of behavior that develops among a large population and is collectively followed with enthusiasm for some period, generally as a result of the behavior’s being perceived as novel in some way. A fad is said to” catch on” when the number of people adopting it begins to increase rapidly. The behavior will normally fade quickly once the perception of novelty is gone. Remember Silly Bands and Pet Rocks?
TREND: The general direction in society in which fashion, style, social consciousness or behavior tends to move. Trends move slower than fads and stay around longer.
EMERGING COLORS: They are the colors gaining strength as seen in new products coming to the marketplace.
SUSTAINING COLORS: These are the colors that have been in the marketplace for a full season and appear to be strong for another one or two years.
CLASSIC COLORS: These colors have found themselves in the marketplace for several years running and still find new life when paired with emerging ones.
COLOR LINGO
HUE: Pure spectrum color commonly referred by color names.
VALUE: Relative lightness or darkness of a color
TINT: The lightness value of any color…a hue with white added
TONE: Midrange value of the color…the hue with gray added.
SHADE: The darkest value of a color…a hue with black added.
CONTRAST of VALUE: Separates objects in space.
GRADATION of VALUE: Suggests mass and contour or a continuous surface.
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