Eight Tips to Color Your Shop Effective!

Are you using color to your advantage? As one of the most powerful elements of design, the colors you use can have a profound effect on your customers and their physiological and emotional response to your space.

Here are six tips to keep in mind when you choose colors:

1. Warm colors such as reds, yellows and oranges promote socialization and energize people. Pink, although a calm version of the warm color family, makes skin tones look great, so they can be wonderful for dressing rooms. Conversely, yellows and oranges make skin tones look bad, but are effective in small quantities to energize a space.
2. Cool colors such as blues and greens are universally liked. They are comforting colors and help consumers slow down and relax. However, be careful with the shades of green you use in your retail shop. Greens that have too much white or yellow, and are therefore bright, can cause high vibration in a room. Greens are also not flattering to skin tones. Purple is a controversial color – some folks love it, others hate it. Use it wisely.
3. If you are looking for a neutral color, taupes are preferable to grays. If paired with the wrong lighting, gray can look dirty and depressing. Though conventional wisdom says white is good for showing off art in a museum setting, it is often too stark and cold for most retail stores. But don’t be afraid to use color! The positive effects the right colors have in a retail setting can make a real difference at the cash register and on the bottom line.
4. Be careful when color pairing. In some cases, it’s important to keep color saturations the same, and in other situations, it’s good to vary the color saturations of colors. For instance, lavender and dark blue won’t work as well as lavender and light blue because these latter two balance each other. However, when complementary colors such as blue and orange are paired together at the same saturation, the resulting vibrations can be too much for eyes to handle.
5. When choosing color, consider your brand. What goals are you trying to achieve? What’s your signature look? Are you seeking to create an understated, elegant environment or a whimsical, lighthearted end result? Take the vibe of the space you are trying to create, and determine which colors will best support the energy desired and your brand.
6. Accent colors bring attention to a space, a department, or a product display. Painting the back wall an accent color can draw customers into the space. Painting the wall behind the transaction counter one of your logo colors can draw attention to this service area. Where do you want to make a statement?
7. What are you selling? What colors are used in the packaging and on the products themselves? Coordinating a wall of color with a new line of products can make a strong visual statement, increase attention, product engagement and ultimately in sales of the line.
8. Be aware of how your lighting affects the colors you choose. The difference between warm lighting and cool lighting can be dramatic when it comes to the way a color reads in a space. Lamps with whiter light output [around 3500* kelvin temp] and a CRI [color rendering index] of 85 or above, will ensure your colors look their best.

Keep these eight tips in mind to create a cool space your customers will warm up to!

Contributed by Lyn Falk, owner, educational speaker and designer at Retailworks Inc, an award-winning, nationally recognized design firm located in Mequon, Wis.