Color Trends: Eight Color Choices to Improve Productivity
When choosing colors for your work area the new trend is to find the color or colors that fit the tasks at hand. It has long been believed that the colors we surround ourselves with will have a big impact on our mood, but this thinking has now been applied to work spaces. Various colors or color combinations will stimulate your productivity.
So when selecting what colors form the color wheel to deck your halls with, think long and hard about what you are trying to achieve. These eight tips should help you determine what will work for you. However keep in mind that no color works in a tunnel. Sometimes it is a combination of colors with the dominate one being the one that should match your work goals. Just like no one instrument makes up a band. No one color should be the only source of inspiration in a room.
1. Get Creative:
Yellow: If you need to be creative this is the color for you because it stimulates your inner self. You have to be brave and confident to make creative choices, so this is a color that will empower your creative instincts.
According to world-renown color psychologist, Angela Wright, who developed the Color Affects System theory, a creative environment needs yellow for the creator to thrive. “It takes guts to be creative and come up with something new – that’s why yellow works in that environment.”
2. Get Calm:
Blue: As color expert Doreen Martel tells Bright Hub, if you need to feel soothed or unstressed to get your work done this is the color choice for you. All blue tones can sedate most stressful situations. So if your job is high octane keep yourself calm with a pretty shade of blue.
3. Get Physical:
Red: If you need to do physical work that involves movement then red is your hue. Red will stimulate your heart rate and raise your blood pressure, so paint the town red if your work requires you to get up and boogie.
Wright notes that, when asked about a color environment to get physical in, “blue isn’t going to be a lot of help to you – you want the red for physical strength and stimulus.”
4. Get Collaborative:
Green: Harmony is what mother nature is all about and her color choice is green. So if it is group thinking you are trying to encourage then color your work area with shades of green.
According to Moredays, a blog that helps you plan and organize your life better, “green symbolizes nature and it helps to evoke relaxed mood (…) Thus the backstage rooms where actors are waiting to appear on TV or on stage are painted with green color, as it calms the nerves and people are more relaxed.” In turn, when people are more relaxed, the collaborate and hear each other better.
5. Get Organized:
Orange: 50 shades of orange will yield glorious results if you do organizational tasks for your work. According to Feng Shui principles, orange is considered a ‘yang’ color, and will promote focus and clarity in any work space.
6. Get Loyal:
Purple: This color creates an environment for dreaming, thus allowing all who work in it to dream big. In an article on UK based Smarta, the author notes that “purple and violet represent future opportunities, stimulating the imagination and helping people dream of better times to come.” Couldn’t we all use a little more encouragement in that department? Instead of getting bogged down in the past, look to the future with purple.
Also, purple inspires unconditional and selfless love, which is perfect when trying to promote loyalty and family.
7. Get Comfortable:
Brown: This warm color makes people feel grounded and harmonious, therefore it is a relaxing color to work in, day in and day out. Harmony is the atmosphere that is created when you spread this shade around a work area.
The experts at Smarta echo this by stating that “it is solid and dependable. Brown encourages a sense of belonging.” If you’d like your co-workers and employees to feel like they’re truly a part of the operation, for example, it may be worth your time to throw a coat of brown on the walls.
8. Get Positive:
White: Want to make your work space seem larger? Then paint your walls white because it will allow the light to be more reflective and expansive. A bigger than life area will make people feel more optimistic.
However, when choosing your shade, all whites are not created equal. Martel notes that “walls that are painted a muted white can help give a small work area a far more spacious feeling. Painting those same walls in a bright white can result in eye strain and is better used in small quantities.” So choose carefully!
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