Voyage Decoration is a home interiors company. They have different collections to suit a variety of tastes and styles, but the designers seem heavily inspired by nature as the collections reflect this. The way they control their use of colour differs from collection to collection. The voyage couture and natural living ranges tend to be mostly monochromatic in greys and natural colours using metallic and texture for accents so here the design is highlighted and perhaps the most important feature. Other collections which are strongly connected with nature, use this as a basis for their colour schemes and palettes. This is where the design and colour scheme become interdependent, with each aspect being as important as the other.
Marimekko is a Finnish design house producing clothing. Their designs are simple and quite geometric in shapes. Their signature seems to be simplicity when it comes to colour, using monochromatic colour palettes with accent colours (in this case orange and pale pink). Pattern and texture on the clothing is minimal allowing them to control the use of colour.
Mary Katranzou is a fashion designer who uses bold colours, stripes and pattern to create contours and shapes in her clothing designs.http://www.marykatrantzou.com/collections/ready-to-wear/pre-fall-2016/runway There were a lot of this designers pieces that I thought had a great use of colour, however I chose to look at this one because it was a really good example of the way the use of colour and design links together to create the shape and appearance of the garments. The use of the light coloured edging draws our eye to give the appearance of perfectly balanced shoulders and hips. The red colour and shading on the jacket although printed give a textural 3D effect combining with the vertical wavy lines on the blouse to create height/length. The designer shows us here how the use of pattern and colour in clothing can change the appearance of body shape, and the controlled use of minimal colours accentuates this. Here, the design and colour use go hand in hand, as different colours would alter the appearance of shape and size.
Wallace Sewell are a British design duo producing woven scarves, throws and cushions. They use blocks and stripes of colour and geometric patterns in their woven products and use these shapes to control their use of colour. There seems to be a theme of using complimentary colour schemes for accent in various palettes.
Cole & Sons produce designer wallpapers. As with interiors, there are lots of different collections depending on style, taste, colour palettes and schemes. There are William Morris style prints and Esher inspired wallpapers, and modern geometric designs. There was one design that caught my eye because of the use of colour.
cole & sons geometric wallcovering
With simple use of vertical and diagonal stripes the layers of colour create the diamond and triangular shapes. The colours interact with each other in such a way that give a three dimensional effect. Each layer of colour is important as without it we would not have the geometric shapes that give us the end design. This would require extremely careful colour planning from the designer so in this sense both colour and design are interdependent. This piece of design is almost like a lesson in colour mixing and it is fascinating studying it and trying to figure out how the colours were layered up!
Norma Starszakowna creates hanging textile installations. She works with silk organza and uses historical buildings and walls as her inspiration with many of her pieces including graffiti and text. Her colour use is taken from the natural hues she observes, so uses a lot of earth tones and greys with the use of shading and texture too produce accents and points of interest.
Paul Smith – clothing and accessories designer. S/S16 Collection – Uses mainly dark colours for the capsule collection with the use of primary colours for accent. The designer extends the primary colour palette to include green, orange and turquoise and controls the colours by keeping them in blocks and accessorising with the dark to create impact.
Vlisco is a company I have encountered before in an earlier part of the course. They are a Dutch company produceing wax resist prints inspired and designed for the African market. Due to the processes involved in the printing and layering up of colours a lot of the designs seem analoguous. Other patterns have a triadic colour scheme, with geometric patterns and inspiration coming from African national colours.
Ptolemny Mann is a designer that creates hand dyed and woven pieces for the home, and creates installations for corporate and business use. She seems to use complimentary colour schemes, she dyes the fabrics so they gradually change or fade and give a ‘dip dyed’ effect so explores shades of the same colour. She also uses geometric designs with triadic colour schemes in various colour palettes,