COLOR MANAGEMENT IN DECORATION
The moment anyone undertakes to furnish a home, that moment he begins to use color. Ross Crane, when conducting experiments in which color schemes for complete rooms were planned and executed step and step, determined that there are only four steps to take in building a color scheme.[15] These four steps are:
1. Decide on a dominant or controlling color.
2. Decide on the colors to go with it.
3. Bring these colors into the room in everything.
4. Accent the scheme by means of small objects (flower bowl and flowers, lamps, pictures, smoking trays) in high intensities of the leading color. These are the high lights that produce life and sparkle.
Another writer puts it this way:
In deciding on a color scheme for a whole room, fix on some foundation color, and then introduce relief and contrast.[16]
PLANNED PROCEDURE FOR THE SALESPERSON
With this information well in mind the home furnishings salesman will do well to leave learned and scientific discussion of color management to the scientists and concentrate on a few principal facts which will be dominant throughout the sales procedure.
He may be assured that his customer's decisions to buy furnishings for a complete room, a few pieces only, or none at all, will be conditioned by her likes, by the family budget, by the size and use to be made of the room, and by the necessity to use "left-overs."
He certainly will profit by having a rather definite knowledge of chromatic scales, complementary colors, adjacent colors, nuances, and concentric circles as devices which he may use to show how we get the many varied colors. It is the opinion of leading experts that the average salesman will find it far easier and more satisfactory to talk convincingly of color management for any given room or combination of rooms by using a simple color story which starts with the six basic colors, and which may be understood easily by the customer. If a simple color chart is close at hand and ready for use at any time, the sales talk will deal with facts, not generalities.
He must be able to take an inventory, by personal inspection or through questions, of the color possibilities in the decoration problem presented by the customer. Such facts as room exposure, size and type, wall color, floor covering, furniture already in the room; use to be made of the room, number, sex, and characteristic traits of those who will live, eat, work, or sleep in the room; and approximate price ranges must be known if real help is to be given.
He must know the stock so thoroughly that within the given price range, the designation of the proper color schemes will be comparatively easy. He must use his knowledge of color through the furnishings, to interpret, as needed, two different sets of ideas:
1. One in which the color scheme is daring, with unusual combinations, startling, gay, and sophisticated.
2. The other, with a color scheme recognized as gentle, restful, and never monotonous.
If he has a feeling of intimacy with both and will use his knowledge consciously to produce definite emotional effects, in a progressive series, he will see sales come as a reward for his effort.
THE SALESPERSON AS INTERPRETER OF APPRECIATIONS
When next you find a room in the home of a friend, in a model house, or illustrated in a magazine that awakens a response of pleasure when you first see it, stay with it long enough to find out why. Study the handling of color in curtains, rugs, chair upholstery, lamps, and bits of pottery; ask yourself where the abiding interest of the room is centered. Seek to uncover the secret of the spell this room casts over your senses. Unconsciously, you thrill to the thought that you, yourself, would never tire of such a room. It is the ultimate in color management.
This glorious adventure must be experienced by you, yourself. To you is given a power to enrich your appreciation of lovely things, and in turn to convey similar appreciations to your customers.
The salesman who has learned to exercise this power is far from being an order taker or even an order solicitor. Literally, he is counselor and guide—an interpreter of the store services which exist to help the customer, and the one to show the store management the need for expert customer guidance in color management.
If once, you, the salesman, have experienced the personal satisfactions of studying a room which has unmistakable distinction, which literally glows with the light of a personality reflected against a background of culture, understanding, and sympathy, you in turn will seek eagerly to share your adventures in color management with those who come to you seeking to express their desires and aspirations in terms of usable, lovely surroundings.
Difficult? The difficulty is in deciding to make the effort.