Colour

Today was the first official day of trade for Braddon Flowers! We are offering click and collect / deliveries but while I was still in lock down last week, I dusted off my old folios from The International School of colour and design.

During my time at the ISCD, I painted thousands of colour chips. Every time we learnt a new colour rule or theory, we were to paint each chip in the spectrum that we were learning about. It didn’t start easy either, we painted the colour wheel from scratch on our very first day of this course!

Looking through these old painted chips got me wondering if I use these colour rules and theories subconsciously throughout my day and with the flowers. Complementary and analogous colours, sure I probably use those rules in almost every bouquet I create.

But what about colour inversion? A technique where complementary colours are used together on the same grey scale. In other words they are the same tone. When side by side they can create an optical illusion that one of the colours is illuminated. I have been obsessed with the way colours can do this ever since I first learnt about it. It’s more of a tool than a rule. I am not sure I use this much in floristry, maybe not at all because it is difficult to find flowers in complementary colours in the same tone - maybe near impossible.

I did play around with colour inversion for the branding of Bf. As you can see in the image above, the green looks illuminated. I asked most of my close friends and family for their opinions on the green and pink. I think I asked so many people because I was dying for at least some of them to just agree with me.

In the end too many people told me it would be too polarising and to stick with the light yellow and pink. Ultimately I am happy with the choice but I am taking this opportunity to show off this visual colour bomb just once!

If you remember, tell me what you think of it when you visit Braddon Flowers, I’d like that.

:)