Colour therapy and design

Hello my name is Jade,
I am a forth year Graphic design student at the university of western Sydney Nepean, in New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
For the past six months I have been working on creating a relationship between design and colour therapy with the hope of establishing an effective method of alternative healing with in a hospital environment. I am currently engaged in a special program that gives students from my course the opportunity to produce paintings and photography for our local hospitals and medical centres, the aim of this program is to change the sterile and bleak atmosphere that is commonly experienced in most hospitals and through the art work create a worm and nurturing environment where the patients can escape there illness for moments at a time.
I apply the methods of colour therapy to my works in the hope that they may ease the experience of the patients and help them to deal with their circumstances. I believe that this program has helped to a certain degree but I want to take the concept to a new level and what I propose to do for my fourth year project is design the entire interior of a room or space, from the ceiling to the floor, I want to create an oasis where patients can escape any sadness or fear and just relax. I want to take away their pain and replace it with a visual stimulus of calming colours and shapes.
My good friend Nicole is battling cancer as I type this, she needs a bone morrow transplant, she hates going to the hospital to have treatment and sometimes cries for hours afterwards. She associates everything painful and sad with Hospitals, like most patients, but I want to try to help Nicole and everyone else who suffers the way she dose, I want to make a difference and through this room I hope to achieve that.
I am writing to you today for advice and or any opinions you may have regarding my 4th year major project.
If anyone has any comments, ideas, and suggestions or maybe interested in my project please contact me at JADEAMY@yahoo.com
Yours sincerely Jade Tomaszewski

[Kathy1106]

Hi Jade,

What a great idea! Hospitals can be a very frightening place and to bring in some brighter color would be wonderful for the patients.
Good luck, Kathy

[Fogsuw]

Great information

[Firouz]

Hi Jade,
Your design idea for using colour to make hospitals less intimidating is really excellent. I have always loved colour and been aware of its effect on how I feel. Also I have had treatment using both red light and blue light (separately) which were effective on a long term skin condition. This was not introduced as alternative therapy, just another treatment at a cosmetic surgery clinic alongside lasers and scalpels.
A suggestion is to use coloured nets at the windows. Several colours can be put in layers one behind the other and pulled over the window or pulled back again, either singly or in combination, to create different light in a room. I have done this in various rooms in my appartment and it really is so much more pleasing than having only white nets. The yellows and oranges are really warm and relaxing at the same time. The only problem is it can be rather expensive.
All the best with your studies.
Firouz

[colour affects]

In our experience, it is not enough to say, for example, use blues, or use greens etc... colour work just like music, insofar as one note (colour) by itself, has psychological properties, but whether that colour works positively or negatively on the emotions only becomes clear when you use it with other notes (colours). There is no such things as a good colour, or a bad colour - it is all a matter of how they are used.

There is no doubt that harmonious and positive colour schemes do benefit the healing process. It is not just a matter of the uplifting emotional effect of a visually attractive environment - colour affects us all physiologically.

It is difficult to advise you from this distance, but here is some general advice:

Decide first which family of colours will be best for this situation. I suggest Group 1 colours (springtime in Europe); the description of that colour family on the Colour Affects website (www.colour-affects.co.uk) says,

GROUP 1
Clear, delicate warm colours containing no black. Descriptors such as scarlet, coral, peach, daffodil yellow, emerald green, sky blue, cobalt and lilac apply. Personal characteristics associated with this tonal family are light, warm, friendly, new, young, lively, fresh, clean, and optimistic.

Negatively, they may be perceived as insubstantial, frivolous and immature.

The atmosphere that this colour group creates is very appropriate for creating a happy environment, as the colours have innate properties of light and create a sense of looking forwards - the personality type linked to this colour group is eternally youthful, and the best nurses belong to this type.

Once you have decided on the group, make sure that you try and make sure every colour you use belongs to this group - for group 1, no black, or other cold colours and no really intense or heavy colours - they are all light, clear and fairly delicate.

Go to the Colour Affects website and read the psychological properties of the main colours. http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psyprop.html

That will help you to decide which basic hue (blue, green etc,) you choose from within the Group 1 palette for each area. For example, a bit of orange (keep it light!) works well where the patients are being encouraged to eat; green is the most reassuring colour and both maintains and restores balance - so it is good to use in areas where tensions are running high; pink helps everyone to sleep (it doesn't have to be a girly candy pink, it can be a soft peach). In simple terms, where they sleep, use pink, balanced with green or blue, to refresh them when they wake up; blue is the best dominant colour for where they might be reading, or studying; very soft yellow, balanced with blue, will lift the spirits and support any kind of emotional therapy... you get the idea, I am sure.

Finally, remember the crucial question of colour balance. Any colour will work less well, no matter how great it is, if it is overdone. We don't react to just one colour anyway, but to the colour combinations around us. A simple formula would be:

Dominant colour (probably on the walls) about 70 - 75% of the palette
Secondary colour about 20% of the palette
Accents make up the remaining 5-10%

All one colour in a space stresses people out and absolutely equal amounts of colours - e.g.33%33%/33% - cancel each other out and create a rather downbeat atmosphere.

Hope this helps!

Nicky