Interior Color Guide

Primary and Secondary Colors

• If you look at a 24-color color wheel (available online, but better purchased at an art, hardware or stationery store to avoid distortion if your computer monitor is not calibrated perfectly), you will see the colors yellow, blue and red equidistant from each other along the perimeter of the color wheel. These are known as the primary colors. The secondary colors are equidistant between each set of primary colors. They are green, purple and orange.

Complementary Colors

• Each primary color has a complementary color, which is the combination of the two other primary colors. The complement of a color lies directly opposite the color on the color wheel. The complement of yellow is purple; the complement of blue is orange; the complement of red is green, which leads to the first important principle of color design: A primary color looks good with its complementary color. In general, yellow looks good with purple, blue with orange and red with green.

Other Complementary Colors

• The principle of complementary colors is extremely useful. Even though you probably will not want to decorate your home in red, green, yellow, purple, blue and orange, each color on the color wheel has a complement. The complement of each color lies directly opposite it on the color wheel. The complement of yellow-green is reddish-purple; the complement of bluish-purple is yellow-orange and so on. The human eye can distinguish millions and millions of different colors, and each one of them has a complement that will go well with it.

Triads and Analagous Colors

• A triad is any three colors equidistant from each other on the color wheel. The three primary colors are an example of a triad as are the three secondary colors. However, millions of triads exists within the range of colors the human eye can see. Analagous colors are those that sit next to each other on the color wheel. An example would be red-orange and orange-red.

Color Design Principles

• You have other simple principles by which you can coordinate colors. One is the 60/30/10 rule. By one of the methods described above, identify three colors that look good together. Pick one as the main color, and use that for 60 percent of the color in a room. Use 30 percent of one of the other colors and use the third color as an accent.

White, Gray, Black and Beige

• You can use neutral colors as part of your color scheme. For example, a light gray used with purplish-red and yellow-green will give your room a very sophisticated look.