Color Consultant Amy Wax – Color911
To make a home or kitchen design requires at least a splash of color. Many homeowners have a hard time selecting and utilizing color. In our our post Understanding & Using Color we introduced you to the Color911 App as an amazing tool for exploring and choosing colors for your kitchen remodel project. It turns out Color Specialist Amy Wax is the genius behind that amazing tool so we decided we had to interview her. This week we lister to Amy’s account of her journey from being Illustrator to renowned Color Consultant to Art & Design App Developer.
From Art & Illustration to Color & Design
What brought you to specialize in color?
Yeah, actually, my background is that I’m an illustrator. I’m an artist first and I would do a lot of illustration jobs. And then it occurred to me and actually some people had told me that they kept coming back and hiring me because my unique sense of color. So I thought, that’s fine. But it didn’t really drive what I was doing professionally until when I got out of school.
I was still illustrating, but I was also dabbling in interior design and I found more and more people are coming back to me saying: “We really want to use your colors.” Even if there were designers who were hiring me to do colors for jobs. They were doing the design work and they wanted me to do their colors first.
So what I did was I let the interior design kind of go away and let the experts do what they do best. Then I went ahead and took on color, full steam. You know, full steam ahead. And the nice thing about it is it gives me the ability to determine the layout, the plan. What the color needs are, the color priorities for whatever the job is, large or small.
And then I hand it off to people who are the architects and the interior designers. The people who are professionals at space planning, cabinetry or kitchen design, all of that stuff. And once I’ve done my color plan, that’s very, very cool.
And what what kind of art did you start off with initially?
I’m an illustrator and I did a lot of very, very realistic work. I actually have an Instagram page I can share with you afterwards. Now I would love to see it again.
What is a Color Consultant?
Yeah, I think the job of a Color Consultant is to suggest colors, but keep several things in mind. One is what your needs are for the space. If you want the space to be outgoing, you want it to be colorful. Or, maybe you want it to be representative of a historical period in time. Or, if you want it to be something that is really Zen and understated.
So I think the job of the color consultant is to recommend colors, but also to really listen to the homeowner and see what their needs are, see what they want to accomplish with their colors. So the job is to also think of what the color the homeowner needs. Or, if they work for the designer, and think of what the designer needs.
Also, a color consultant’s job is to look at what the trends are and also to see how color psychology will come into play. If they want something that’s bright and colorful, is that something they’re really going to be comfortable with? And will that really accomplish what they need to accomplish? So the color consultant should know enough about color and to take all these things into consideration. To give the client the colors and flexibility in color themes that will help them succeed at what they’re trying to accomplish.
Design and Consulting for Developers
How did you come to work with real estate developers? Did you kind of naturally transition because of your work with architects and designers, or how did that come about?
My husband and I have purchased, renovated, restored over a dozen homes. So the more homes we did, the more the business kind of built organically. Yeah, people would see what the work was and say, “Who did these colors?” And then, you know, on down the street. We had done several different houses because the street was originally in disrepair and we worked on one house after the other.
And by the time we had done, I don’t know, six or seven houses in a row, we had TV stations doing series on us. Then MSNBC did a story on us because everything just looks so beautiful that the colors became their own calling card. And by then I had designers calling me, homeowners, calling me architects, builders, contractors. So it kind of took on a life of its own by the work showing what I was capable of.
So did that start initially before you started working more with designers? Was that the first step leading up to that?
I think they were kind of hand in hand. But the more work I did, the more it wasn’t even like promoting the business or selling it because it wasn’t a business yet. Or so I didn’t think.
So what happened over time was the more work I did, the more calls I got, and it kind of took on a life of its own favorable. All right. So, so obviously, you also I think also I’m going to interrupt you for a second. I think also people don’t know that they need color help like they like I love your look, understanding like someone.
I really believe people could have a really great sense of style. They could have a great sense of design. They could design, you know, kitchens that are beautiful or functional or they can design homes with spatial relationships are perfect. But I think that colors are the backbone of all design. If the colors don’t work at all a design can kind of can fall apart.
So my focusing on color was really because I believe and I still believe the color is the backbone of design. So the more I help people in this area, the more that they can go on and do what they do best. And I love that. I really love that. And I totally agree with you on that. I think that can really make or break a space.
I love that. I really love that. And, I totally agree with you on that. I think it can really make or break a space, it’s super important. And like you mentioned earlier, the color psychology and how interesting it is and how it can really just change the feel of a room.
Expanding Colorful Vocabularies
If you’re in a room that’s that’s a saturated red, it can be very ad it could be very agitated and can really be raise your blood pressure and make you more an on edge, whereas a room that’s in more soothing colors, it can be relaxing, it can calm you down, it can provide a space to decompress at the end of the long work day.
So I think part of being an excellent listener, too. I mean, to be an excellent guide is to listen to what the homeowner needs and provides colors that will satisfy those needs. And here, you know, we that goes into taking into account needs and maybe a homeowner might think that they like color. But once you have an understanding of what they actually want for that space, you might be able to redirect to what color might work better for that space.
And it’s also a matter of what time of day you use the space. Do you need to use this space when you wake up in the morning? Do you need it to get yourself energized or is this where you kind of decompress at the end of the long day? So I’m listening to all of those things about the color colors that they need and why they need them.
Designing with the Color911 Tool
How did you come to develop the Color911 App?
So I had two goals in creating the app. One goal was we need a way to communicate color. If I tell you I have the color blue in mind, that tells you absolutely nothing because it could be a teal blue, it could be a periwinkle blue, which is blue, a little purple to it.
It could be a navy blue or powder blue. So we need a way to communicate color. And I found so many times, especially working with, I mean, homeowners and designers, really, if they want to show a color, they have to be able to way of taking that color and presenting it to you. So the one thing I want to do, it’s the color 911 does is you can create a color instantly and then hit send and then you’ve got it in your phone and a minute later, and you know what exactly what color I’m thinking about.
So I think it’s a tremendous tool for anyone who uses color. And this really doesn’t matter if you’re looking at colors to get dressed in the morning. If there’s something you want to match for a party or an event or a website design, it’s how everything is color. So my first goal was to have a way to communicate color.
The second is there are so many people who are good at what they do. As I said before, and I wanted them to be able to take their skills and make them even better by knowing what colors go well together. Because if you’re designing a space, it really is helpful. If you could see if I want let’s say I want to go back to that blue again, what can I do with blue?
Does it have to go with only with white? No, it can go with all these different options. So I created these color themes and there’s 110 in there right now and there’s more on my drawing board. So there’ll be more in there in the next few days. And I updated regularly. So the app is always fresh, it’s always showing new ideas. So the app is providing a way to communicate color. It’s also providing inspiration.
Check out Part 2 of our Interview with Amy: Color911 – Color in Design
Produced by Todd Zimmerman
