Preferred Surface Colour Combos

Wondering how to paint your home? Don’t mix up the colours too much, group similar hues together. So for instance put hues of blue, or shades of green together. Serra, Gouaich, and Manav explored the “similarity/contrast . . . on the walls of a simulated interior of a bedroom from the Swiss Pavilion (Le Corbusier, 1930-1931). Participants were 644 students of architecture and interior design in Western Europe and Near East, who evaluated with a Likert scale their preference for virtual images via an online survey.

Results indicate that the most preferred colour combinations are those with hues closer in the colour wheel, being the similarity between hues in the backgrounds more important than in the accent colours. . . . Observers preferred colour compositions with blackness under 10% and similar blackness between the two background colours. . . . observers liked colour compositions with low chromaticness and low chromaticness difference among the four colours of the composition.” So the lighter the hue the better too!

Juan Serra, Yacine Gouaich, and Banu Manav.  2022.  “Preference for Accent and Background Colors in Interior Architecture in Terms of Similarity/Contrast of Natural Color System Attributes.”  Color Research and Application, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 135-151, https://doi.org/10.1002/col.22698