When Interior Design Meets Fashion: How Colour Blocking Is Evolving As A New Trend In The Commercial Interior Designing Space

Colour has always played an important role in the domain of fashion and interior design. Choosing the right colour combinations can make or break your look when it comes to fashion. Irrespective of how gorgeous your outfit is, using the wrong colours would make all your efforts go in vain. Similarly, using incoherent combinations of colours while designing the interiors of your office would mask all the sleek designs and beautifully crafted furniture articles.

Coming into prominence in the ‘60s, colour blocking is an activity primarily associated with fashion. However, over time, it has seeped into the realm of commercial interior designing, making designers block the right colours while working with commercial spaces across the board.

Irrespective of the domain in which you apply it, colour blocking essentially works the same way everywhere. At the end of the day, it is all about using colours the right way to add to the beauty and aesthetic appeal of a person or a place.

What Do You Mean By Colour Blocking?

Colour blocking is the art of using two or more (preferably contrasting) colours on an object or within a space to give it a unique and appealing look. Fashion designers have been pairing various colours while designing clothes to make them stand out from the clutter, grab every eyeball, and make the clothes pleasing to the eyes.

A similar trend is now being used in commercial interior designing as the designers select a contrasting combination of shades and colours to give a unique and beautiful look to offices. Right from pairing dark blue chairs with white tables to pairing earthy brown floorboards with peach walls, colour blocking can be used to give a definite look and feel to your office. Just like fashion, colour blocking used in interior designing is the art of choosing the right colours and visualizing the space well before going ahead with the execution.

To optimize colour blocking, it is important to use complementary and contrasting colours. While a lot of colour blocking is about using contrasting colours, not every pair of contrasting colours would complement each other.?

Important Colour Blocking Principles To Take Note Of

Refrain From Using Loud Colours At All Places

While you can go no holds barred while designing residential interiors, designing commercial spaces often requires the use of subtle undertones and understated colours. While adopting colour blocking for commercial spaces, it is advisable to use complementary colours that are not too loud together, unless the client specifically asks for it.

Especially while designing the interiors of offices, you can use contrasting colours and shades that do not seem distracting from the overall theme of the space. Staying subtle and minimal in your approach while designing commercial interiors adds to the overall appeal of the space.

Let Colour Blocking Go Beyond Walls

When it comes to designing interiors, people often limit colour blocking to the walls. They use different contrasting colours on the walls to give a unique look to the room but do not venture beyond that. To use colour blocking to its fullest and get the best results, it is advisable to go beyond the walls and apply the same to other sections of the commercial space as well.

While the walls take up the most space in a room, make sure you take the entire space into consideration and use colour blocking on the floor, furniture, lights, and ceiling as well. Come up with a central theme and extend it throughout the interiors by combining complementary colours.

However, using colour blocking for the whole area does not mean that you overdo it and apply the same colours to every single object within the room. While creating a tasteful colour scheme and design for the interiors, always make sure that you don’t go overboard with the colours. Having a restrained and subtle approach should always be your priority.

Tips For Using Colour Blocking While Designing Commercial Interiors

Paint Wall Panels In Complementary Colours

DIY wall panels are commonly found in offices, restaurants, and hotel receptions. If the commercial space you are designing has such panels, you can use contrasting and complementary colours to paint them. This would make the panels stand out in the room and give them a personality of their own. If used in the cabins of executives, putting on laminated photographs and certificates on such panels would add to the cabin’s appeal.

Frame Your Mirrors With Colour Blocking

You can always extend the magic of colour blocking to the restrooms. Colour the frames of the mirrors in the restrooms in a way that a perfect contrast with the colour of the wall behind them. Even if you keep nothing else on the wall except the mirror frames in contrasting colours, the minimal approach would enhance the simple yet elegant feel of the space.

Perks Of Colour Blocking In The Commercial Interior Designing Space

Building A Unique Visual Identity

Just like a logo, tagline, and other branding elements, colour blocking allows you to give a unique visual identity to the brand whose commercial interiors you are working on. Using colours that are in sync with the personality of the brand increases its recall value and extends its presence in a spatial form. Especially in the case of designing commercial spaces that are visited frequently by customers and clients, using the right theme and colours enhances brand association.

Influencing Employee Engagement

In 2022, millennial and Gen-Z employees are not willing to work in offices having dull interiors. Innovative colour blocking while designing commercial interiors help you come up with vibrant themes that positively influence the engagement of employees working in the company.

Casting The Perfect First Impression

When the interiors of an office, a restaurant, a hotel, or any other commercial space have great aesthetics, they allow the brand to cast an ideal first impression on its clients. When the clients walk into the office impressed, the chances of fruitful deals being cracked increase!

The Final Word

With colour blocking, commercial interior designers have borrowed one of the most fascinating trends for increasing the appeal of the spaces they tend to. By using the same principles and adopting an innovative approach, interior designers can definitely work wonders with colour blocking!