Postmodern Interior Design Colors

The Memphis Style

• Memphis was a design collaborative formed by the Italian designer Ettore Sottsass. They emphasized a range of colors that could be used in postmodern interiors, including tomato red, bright blue, and patterns including a pink and black mosaic print. In many instances, these unexpected and nontraditional colors were paired with industrial materials, including neon, zinc, printed glass and celluloid. As design historians Ed Sexton and Doug Taylor note, the Memphis style was characterized by teals, purples, reds, greens and yellows, as well as the signature colors of black and white.

Color and Pattern

• From the beginning, the Memphis group influenced the colors and patterns of postmodern design, and they continue to be associated with the postmodern color palette to this day. Drawing influences from designs including Martine Bedin's Superlamp, one might choose red, yellow, blue, green or pink, in their primary hues or as fluorescent as possible, for interior colors. A key element in choosing postmodern interior colors is understanding that it is often the combination of clashing elements that most effectively conveys the idea of the postmodern.

Creating Postmodern Interiors

• When creating postmodern interiors, it is important to understand that the term "postmodern" refers to a specific design style and period rather than simply a period after the postwar, modern period. If this distinction is made, postmodern interiors will include the characteristics described previously: bold colors, disturbing juxtapositions of patterns, stripes, animal prints, fluorescent colors and other elements that can challenge the serenity of an interior space. Designer Karl Lagerfeld, whose Monaco apartment was completely furnished with pieces designed by the Memphis group, noted that "Memphis tried to breathe fresh air into the word 'design' ... what I like about all the Memphis is the humor of it."

Postmodern Design Now

• Perhaps the biggest single challenge in choosing postmodern interior colors is making the distinction between the genuinely postmodern and the merely "after modern." Postmodern design recognizes the values of history, historic details, and local and regional historic contexts, and rejects the belief that modern design could provide a solution to all environments and design challenges. In the true sense of the postmodern, its colors, patterns, strategies and beliefs are drawn not from the time period of the postwar, but from the artistic and design rejections of the stark minimalism of postwar European design and the influences modernism had on design thinking. Its bold prints, juxtaposed colors, jarring contradictions and playful approaches would signify a truly postmodern interior. When thinking "after modern," think of clean lines, whites and neutrals, but when designing a truly postmodern interior, a fluorescent pink, green or blue wall coupled with a bold animal print and a black-and-white-striped feature wall would really define a space.