“It goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway) colour is incredibly inspirational. From the great master painters, the likes of Henri Matisse, who often put colours alongside each other that don’t appear together in nature, creating striking moods. To the use of Orange in The Godfather.”
The natural world is also a source of incredible inspiration. For example, the Highlands of Scotland or the sky above Texas or the topaz blue water of Lake Garda. It’s almost impossible to visit natural environments such as these and to not feel like using the natural tones you find within a colour palette or to play a role in your business’s branding. Being sympathetic to the feelings that colours can evoke is an especially powerful tool to use.
Even as you are reading this, I suspect many of you will ‘feel’ those colours taking you back to those places. Pretty cool right?
The urban environment also has a lot to offer a colour enthusiast like our team at Yonks! Media. Buildings, streets, signage, food, produce, and even the clothes people wear are all visible from our office window and provide a great deal of inspiration for our projects.
Colours of the past
Every era has its own colours: in the 1960s they were predominantly bright, hot, primary and crisp, while the 1980s was a time of black and chrome, when domestic interiors looked more like sterile offices.
Colour in Photography
Here are some fantastic photographers that do some great work involving colour. We recommend you check them out:
Sarah Moon, Guy Bourdin, David LaChapelle, Wolfgang Tillmans, Ernst Haas.
“I like colour that is impressionistic and mysterious rather than real, I admire the swirling blurred action picture of Ernst Haas and the soft, grainy colour of Sarah Moon. Pure reality recorded in colour seems to me like a databook – true, but uninspiring.” – Tony Jones, Photographer