Perfect Palette Update Fall/Winter 2005

Perfect Palette Color Training

Welcome to "Perfect Palette Update," a newsletter for my clients, colleagues, decorators (professionals and amateurs), and others interested in paint color for the home.

This issue of Perfect Palette Update is directed to the budding colorist who wishes to gain the knowledge and skills needed to work effectively with paint color for both interiors and exteriors.

Inside our homes, paint color can break up the monotony of a bland environment and help define our spaces. Paint colors provide a sense of direction as we move through an architectural space and create visual limits, cutting open spaces into manageable segments. Intelligently chosen paint colors can stimulate our minds, sooth our souls, elevate our moods, and enrich our lives.

Wisely chosen exterior colors work with the building, the location and the neighboring homes. Color, form, space and light are all important in architecture, but color is really the variable that most affects the other elements. The placement of exterior color supports certain design features and helps organize them for the observer.

Many of you have used my books, or my consulting services to achieve stunning results for your own homes. Now, I am offering courses to teach this process to anyone interesting in developing the skills of an architectural color consultant!

Insight into the World of the Architectural Color Consultant

I've been an architectural color consultant for nearly 20 years. Many of you have asked what I actually do. The answer is simple. I pick paint colors for people's homes.

The field of professional color consulting is fairly new. Unfortunately, many people are unfamiliar with exactly what it is, and what it means. They associate it more with image consulting than architectural consulting.

The first professional color consultant was an American, Faber Birren. He studied how colors affect human behavior, and his contributions form the main body of research in this area. After the start of WWII, he was able to help drastically reduce the number of accidents among the millions of industrial workers in this country. In fact, based entirely on his use of color design in the workplace, he actually reduced the number of accidents from 46 per 1,000 to 6 per 1,000. His work demonstrated the enormous impact that color has on human beings.

People are unique, and will react differently to the same colors. There is no formula for selecting the "right" color scheme for an architectural environment. A color consultant acquires knowledge, conducts research and spends years "on-site" with clients. This experience equips the consultant to provide a link between the architectural space and the users of that space. The color consultant can then approach the job intuitively, working with every color in the spectrum (their shades and tints) and with the occupants of the space to meet color scheme objectives.

Color School

I recently served as the content expert for the creation of an educational course entitled "Advanced Color School" for a major multi-national paint manufacturer. The experience was new for me, and very rewarding. It allowed me to share my knowledge with others, and has inspired me to keep doing so. For this reason I am offering color training courses to individuals who seek this kind of information, under the name Perfect Palette Color Training (PPCT).

My first two offerings will be self-paced, home-study courses available this winter 2005. These courses will enable participants to learn my system for selecting colors for both a single room, and for whole house solutions. Each course will come complete with a self study workbook, supporting videotapes (DVD's), books, a mail in mastery test, with optional personal feedback from me, and more. Both courses will be available for purchase at my website, bonniekrims.com under "Training." You will be able to read course descriptions and details about these courses on my website as soon as the courses become available (winter 2005-06).

Beginning in 2006, I will also offer on-site workshops to provide insight into the knowledge and skills needed for in-home color consulting. These courses will be available in both the Boston and Chicago areas. Course content will range from beginning to advanced levels.

Advanced courses in professional architectural color consulting, will encompass all aspects of the profession, and ultimately result in accreditation. Specialized courses in the use of historic color, and color selection for exteriors will be available as well.

I am very excited about launching PPCT! Check my website to learn about all the new course offerings. They will be posted there as soon as they become available.