We all recognize our sensitivity to color & mood. Does the blue of the ocean inspire you? What about fall foliage colors? Do you feel serene green? Let’s learn a little bit more. The very well respected, Ms. Angela Wright, on her website Colour Affects, tells us that there are eleven emotional colors and describes them below:
WHITE is hygienic.BLUEis intellectual.BROWN is serious. GREEN is balance. PINK implies physical tranquility. RED is physical.
Also, BLACK is known as sophisticated and glamorous, YELLOW as emotional, and VIOLET as spiritual. Also, ORANGE is about physical comfort, and GREY is psychologically neutral.
White tiles in ceramic and stone:
Think about these for a minute! Now let’s take a look at this from a design standpoint using a variety of Country Floors collections! The use of white stone, ceramic, and glass in bath settings is undoubtedly easy to understand. White is also neutral in a way that invites other colors to shine. This color, of course, enhances your ability to deliver on your bathroom tile ideas. When working with white, always consider “white on white.” As seen below, the use of three-dimensional molding pieces from the Bedford Collection achieves this “white on white.”
White tiles in ceramic:
White tile, for floors or walls, continues to be the most popular color of tiles. Believe it or not, white is one of the most challenging colors in tile production for floors or walls. Although it appears simple, there are many shades of white. Bathroom tile in white appears more problematic when compared to bath fixtures and sanitaryware. Kohler is the most well-known and used bathroom sanitaryware company for sinks and toilets. When you are comparing your bathroom tile against the sink or bathtub, different shades of white appear. Dal-Tile company, Roca Tile company, produces a lot of the cheaper wall and floor tiles. Higher-end tile suppliers like Walker and Zanger, Cletile, Country Floors, and Sonoma Tile are known for offering better quality, more handmade, and glazed tiles. These tiles have a unique hand mold feel to them and look very luxurious in most residential bathroom applications.
Dutch white tile is one of the best white ceramic tiles. These tiles come in irregular shapes and have a degree of variation among them. Each tile is hand-pressed, and different raw material properties give different shades of white.
White tile for bathrooms is easier to clean and maintain. Grout used on these tiles should be unsanded grout, and sealed. Bathrooms with white tiles can look dirty when grout gets stained.
White tiles in marble:
Most of the white marble comes from Turkey, Italy, and Greece. White Carrara, Calacatta Marble, Bianco Dolomiti, and Sivec marble are some of the favorite selections. The most popular of all of them, Thassos marble from the island of the same name, is one of the most well known pure white marbles. As you can imagine, pure white is tough in natural stone, and even the smallest imperfection will stand out. This problem is more pronounced in larger sizes like large format marble floors, 24×24 and larger. These tiles are a tiny percentage of production and can be expensive. The smaller the tile size, the more abundant is the production. Tile flooring in white marbles needs regular floor care. These tiles need to be sealed well and maintain from time to time.
Blue Tiles:
If blue is intellectual, what do you think of the intricacy of the Miradouro Classic Collection? Perhaps as a feature wall or a cleverly refined accent strip? Below you can notice the exquisite detail of the blue pattern with the ancient brushstroke technique on the solid blue molding. These and other similar Portuguese tiles used to be handmade. This tradition of hand-painting these tiles is becoming more and more absolute as the original tile and painting tradition is disappearing.
For this reason, silkscreening is popular. The silkscreened tile process is semi-ancient and semi-automated. The process involves burning these images on silkscreens. Multiple colors are processed one color at a time. These designs are an excellent contrast to plain white marble kitchen floor tiles. The kitchen backsplash is one of the most visible places in a kitchen, and these tiles provide an excellent decorative element. See our Red, White and Blue tiles.
Brown and Green Tiles:
Take a look at the brown below on the left. OK, this is an emotionally serious color, according to Ms. Wright. But as interpreted by our Riva Del Mar Collection, the color gradations inside the brown value lighten the mood while not detracting from the setting. After all, we are all pretty serious about eating! Pantone recently announced Emerald as its color of the year for 2013. So if the emotion of green is balance, notice the balance that Giallo Verdino, also from the Riva Del Mar Collection, strikes in this composition below right.
Earlier, we spoke of white, its pure emotion, and its ability to act as the backdrop for other color values. So if you are looking for floral ideas, take a look below at this 20 pieces ceramic panel from the Novelda Collection! We can certainly feel the sense of physical tranquility that pink can produce!
Then, of course, there is red. Do red cars get stolen more? Do they cost more to insure? Do we see red? Well, let’s just believe in science and agree that red is a physical color. If you, or your client, love red, it does not have to overwhelm you. Take a look at this collage from the Novelda Collection. In these settings, red as a color value is more implied than truthfully indicated.
We hope this has been an exciting exercise in the use of color and the moods associated with them. So, keep this in mind when you are using stone and tile to realize your bath and kitchen design ideas. Next week, we will continue these thoughts with black, yellow, orange, and gray. We will also hear from the Showroom Manager of Country Floors, Jane Vagt. Until then, there are Country Floors locations all over America. Stop in and let them help you design with color and mood!