What if the right colors could boost productivity, support mental well-being, and elevate your brand? In this episode, designer Robin Pasley reveals how strategic color choices, from calming blues to energizing reds, can transform office spaces. Learn how shifting from gray to warmer tones is more than a trend. From trauma-informed design to branded accent walls, get expert tips on using color to create environments that truly work for people.
www.pasleycommercialinteriors.com/commercial-design
Randi Lynn Johnson: 0:00
In talking about how important comfort is in a professional space, we hit chairs and ergonomics. That's a fun word. Let's get into color a little bit. Robin, can you tell me why so many places paint their hallways taupe?
Robin Pasley: 0:19
That's a really good question and I would say well. Well, taupe is a great color because it's in between tan and gray. It's been a really good color as we've tried to leave the gray season behind and we're entering the season of the browns and tans again and all the cream colors. If you didn't take time to upgrade in the last 20 years, you're right on time Super.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 0:45
I always thought that was grayish.
Robin Pasley: 0:47
Yeah, so the idea of color being a part of creating comfort in a space is super important, because color in itself has messaging attached to it. So just hitting the high points on that, if you want a space to feel intense, you can put really bright reds and oranges. That will make a space feel intense. A space, though, that has like a pastel blue is going to feel very calming. As a matter of fact, when we do trauma-informed design, we have to use colors that have that calming effect to them, so we're almost always using a pastel palette and especially pastels and the greens and blues, because they make you feel more calm and rested. You see those a lot in spots as well.
Robin Pasley: 1:35
but then there's another side to color. That is maybe a part of comfort, but it's definitely part of branding and it's the idea idea of just connecting some colors in your space to your brand. And a well-formed brand palette is going to have more than just the colors of the logo. They'll have usually a secondary set of colors and sometimes even a tertiary set of colors, and I find that dipping into those is to bring color into a space is really important, because then the logo itself you're not just repeating the colors in the logo, you're you're touching on the secondary set of colors and bringing some of that into the space which a great graphic designer or brand designer will have thought through to bring you know, to put those into the collateral.
Robin Pasley: 2:29
So bringing some of that color into the space is super important. A very easy way to do that is just one accent wall or a couple of accent walls. But there's also other ways to bring color in through, you know, wallpapers and other features you know, whether it's specific branded features, that that include color Um, and then I like to use uh paint designs on the wall instead of just painting a wall and accent color. Um, sometimes that just helps break up a space.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 3:01
So you said trauma informed design. Can you explain a little bit more about that and what what that means?
Robin Pasley: 3:09
Yes, so trauma informed design is design that is, uh, specifically focused around people who have experienced trauma. So, for instance, I did a permanent supportive housing shelter and the majority of people that were going to be using that shelter were people who had experienced trauma. So we wanted that space to address as much as we could to help them. So help them feel more calm, help them feel comfortable. Even wayfinding. There's some data around the. If someone is being triggered in a space, that their ability just to find home, to get back to where their home is in that space, is super important. And so we use those kinds of color was a huge thing. We would change color per floor so that they, if they got off the elevator and they knew their color was yellow, they were home, they could find their place.
So that's kind of an extreme way of thinking about color, but every business owner needs to think about who their end user is, who their clientele is and what kind of color treatment would best help their space.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 4:33
Okay, so I'm hearing you say we have two important prongs here. We have to be aware that color evokes emotion and how we feel. So as business owners, you've got to know emotion. It's affecting clients and staff. And also, color should coincide with our branding, because we have that one great chance to make a good first impression. Yes, is there anything else that you find would be helpful, as we're just talking about color and making a space comfortable?
Robin Pasley: 5:06
Yes, this is going to be a little bit nerdy, but the other things to think about with color are hue and value. Those are, you know, detail words around picking out colors, but what it really means is hue is the actual color itself. It's what your brain knows. The difference between red and yellow, where value is the intensity of that color in the color that you're looking at so let's define that better is pink, is a mixture of the hue, red with white. So when we're thinking about how much intensity of color we're bringing to a space, even though maybe your brand has blue and red in it, you may not want a red wall behind your desk because that's a really intense color and that may actually bring an emotion that you don't want to bring into that space. Do you want to put pink behind there? Probably not. So it's about understanding how to bring in that hue in the right value so that you're not overwhelming the space with too much color. That makes sense.
Robin Pasley: 6:14
Another thing to keep in mind is how to balance colors. So our eyes pick up the opposite color on the color wheel than what we're looking at. So when you're looking at yellow, your eye will feel comfortable if it can also see purple and some blues. Same thing with reds and greens. Your eye likes to see those together. So, um, you have to think about color in values of. You have to think about color in sorry I'm messing up Think about color in balance as well. So having warms and cools together is important, because it's the same way that your eye wants to see purple when it sees yellow, your eye also wants to see warm and cool together. So if you have a palette that's all warm, it's going to feel uncomfortable and you won't know why.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 7:09
Yeah, it's just like something's missing.
Robin Pasley: 7:11
There's some okay, and like in the last, you know 15 years where we, everything was great. Well, everybody was just doing everything in hues of gray sometimes and you would walk into a space and wonder why you felt so cold. It's because it wasn't just because they use gray. It's because they use gray with no warmth. It needed balance. Okay, so our brains want to see balance. Even if you like, you know things to be skewed or out of proportion sometimes, your brain will still like to see balance.
Randi Lynn Johnson:
In an increasingly competitive market, the merits of using interior design as a strategic growth tool can make all the difference in not just surviving but thriving.
Robin Pasley: 06:25
Pasley Commercial Interiors- design to help your business grow
*Recorded in our studio at 616 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80903
