Karen Wight -- NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Color is fascinating. Show me an avocado green refrigerator and all kinds

of memories come flooding back, like a movie in the back of my mind.

Color cliches, like the peach and aqua of the ‘80s, not only scream era,

but also literally color our memories of people, places and things.

Color trends do not just “happen.” Color is big business in many

industries: fashion, commercial development, health care, food and the

automotive industry.

Companies have entire divisions devoted exclusively to color development

and trends. They track color preferences across the country and isolate

regional preferences. Color is studied on a worldwide scale also; there

are clear patterns of color association with geographical location,

cultural factors, age and gender that influence color selection.

Where do these color trends begin? The answers are surprising and far

more detailed than you might expect.

One of the many color “think tanks,” Color Marketing Group, forecasts

future trends and analyzes color date.

Companies that consult with color marketing groups include Nike,

Hallmark, Corian and car companies. The health-care industry listens to

the research from these groups to determine colors for operating rooms

and recovery areas.

Cool colors in the blue-green range have been shown to increase

concentration and manual dexterity. Therefore, “hospital green” is not a

random choice, but for an operating room, it’s a calculated decision.

Recovery rooms with bright colors, usually in the warm colors, create a

better healing environment.

Nursing homes also create environments that are user-friendly.

Alzheimer’s patients show preference to solid colors and contrasts

between floors, counters and doors. This helps the brain eliminate

confusion between different spatial planes and creates a non-distracting

environment. Other nursing home patients prefer colors and patterns from

the era in which they spent their 40s and 50s, when they were financially

and physically comfortable.

The food industry pays particular attention to the many studies done on

behalf of colors that stimulate appetite, increase visual enjoyment and

affect the perceived tastes of certain foods.

Young children choose red and yellow as their two preferred colors. (Can

you say McDonald’s?) Certain shades of gold stimulate a “customer

purchase response” for fast food. Color can stimulate salivary glands and

create a desire for sugar. The color red increases perceived sweetness

via its association with cherries and strawberries.

There are acupuncturists who claim that colors have healing properties.

Some examples include using an indigo environment to help toothaches, and

orange to help decrease baldness. These specialists depend on colors to

change our flow of energy and promote well-being.

Phrases like “feeling blue” and “green with envy” are testimony to our

association of color and mood.

Car companies are famous for using left-brain preferences and turning

them into right-brain marketing tools.

Toyota has companies worldwide that work on color trends with regard to

region, cultural preference and gender association. Calty, a division of

Toyota’s Worldwide Marketing Division, located in Newport Beach, devotes

full attention to North American buying trends and indicators for future

buying preferences. Car color is an expression of how people see

themselves: aggressive, sexy, affluent or fun.

Chris Dickey, color and trim manager for Toyota Sales and Marketing of

North America, devotes herself to studying color trends worldwide. Some

of the results she shared with me were surprising while others were

predictable.

Beach areas such as Newport Beach and Palm Beach prefer white, linen,

ivory and beige. Pasadena prefers bronze, gold and ocher -- shades Dickey

termed “old money colors.”

Urban areas such as New York and Chicago prefer black. Warm-weather

states tend to prefer light colors. Dark colors are more popular in

Europe.

In Japan, blue, green and white cars scored lowest on the preference list

and were considered ugly. In fact, 61% of men and women polled said that

if they couldn’t get their first color preference on their car of choice,

they would not buy the car.

Men outnumbered women in this area; 64% of men said it was their first

color choice or nothing, compared to women at 58%.

As far as predictors for future colors go, Dickey said “new” colors and

color combinations come from industrial “contract” projects. “Hotels are

huge trendsetters because we become comfortable with colors, and this

translates into other areas of our lives,” according to Dickey’s

research.

Other areas that influence our color preferences include shopping malls

and sports arenas. Does high fashion color our world?

Dickey answers: “Actually, high fashion is several seasons behind. There

are eight color cycles in a calendar year and high fashion does not

dictate color preference to the extent you might think.”

And the color prediction from a woman whose job it is to know our color

preference before we know it ourselves?

“Silver,” Dickey says, “definitely silver for 2003.”

* KAREN WIGHT is a Newport Beach resident. Her column runs Saturdays.