Color and Color Matching

Restored Buildings at 4th and Market Streets, Wilmington, Delaware
Restored Buildings at 4th and Market Streets, Wilmington, Delaware (© JVS Building Services, LLC and Rob Crimmins)

Articles on Color by Colour Studio Founder Jill Pilariscia

Cathedral Stone Products, Inc. Mortars and Grouts

Fifteen mortars and grouts are offered. They’re for mica, stucco, plaster, limestone, sandstone, brownstone, terra cotta, brick, granite, bluestone, marble, concrete, precast, casting, anchor setting, injection grouts and pointing. Color matching service is provided.

Color Blocking

The Ins and Outs of Color Blocking“, by Jill Pilaroscia includes photographs that perfectly illustrate the practice. Applying colors to areas of a building or interior with “color blocking” as the design concept is something that is easily understood and quite effective.

Color Clash: Is This the World’s Ugliest Hue? July, 2016 Design and Durability Magazine

Because of its lack of appeal Pantone 448 C, “Opaque Couche,” a greenish brown was chosen by the Australian government to use in tobacco packaging.

Color Collections by Sherwin-Williams

The themes for these color palettes include “color through the decades” which begins in the 1830s. Among the others are “designer expressions” and “historic palettes“.

Colorants Can Cause Paint Failures

High amounts of colorants required by bold colors can be the cause of paint failures. This February, 2014 Design + Durability article ( reprinted from a Master Painter’s Institute newsletter) explains how it happened on a school project. “The key to the answer is that the semi-gloss latex required the addition of about 15 ounces of universal colorants to the base to achieve the desired color. Too much of most universal or glycol-based colorants can have an adverse effect on a paint’s properties, including a reduction in abrasion and mar resistance; a drop in sheen from semi-gloss to low gloss; delayed drying time (sometimes twice as long as expected); and poor hiding that can mean extra coats.”

Dow Corning “Color It Right” Program for Sealant

Dow’s new program offers “Catalog” and “Custom” colors for its sealants in addition to the standard colors. The links on this page are to pages with the new colors. (This file has swatches for their standard colors.)

Federal Standard Color Server

At this site you can enter the FED-STD-595 color number and display a color sample or specify a combination of numbers to create a color scheme to see how colors look together.

Glen-Gery Brick

Glen-Gery was founded in 1890 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Today they are a manufacturer of many kinds of brick and other masonry materials. Their web site is a resource for builders, specifiers and building owners. Informative articles, manuals and tools are available on mortar color, brick shapes, brickwork details, and many other subjects.

IFS Coatings 2016 Color Trends

IFS Coatings, manufacturer of powder coatings identified five palettes of twelve colors each as the palettes and colors that represent what we are feeling and what colors we hope to see on the surfaces we interact with. The palettes are “Looking Back Moving Forward”, “Health to Happiness”, “Eye to Mouth”, “Power of Play” and “What is Too Much”.

Keim Colors

Keim is a major supplier of mineral silicate finishes and other products in which color and color matching is critical. Their palettes and contact information are on this page. Their product categories are Exterior Stains and Finishes, Interior Stains and Paints, Concrete Systems, Natural Stone and Masonry Systems, Stucco and Plaster Systems and Mural / Artist Paints and Glazes.

Edificio La Adriática, Saville, Spain
Edificio La Adriática, Saville, Spain (© JVS Building Services, LLC and Rob Crimmins)

Nawkaw “Main Street Restoration” Services

Among the services Nawkaw offers is mortar color matching and custom stains for masonry / stone / concrete restoration projects

Pantone

The Pantone Color Matching System is used by printers and others as the standards by which manufacturers in different locations can maintain color consistency. In it, 13 base pigments, 14 including black, can be mixed to produce 1,114 Pantone “spot colors”. Pantone’s announcement of their “Color of the Year” is an important event for designers in many industries.

Sherwin-Williams’ Color Blogs

Jackie’s Notebook

As the director of color marketing for Sherwin-Williams Jackie Jordan has to keep up with everything to do with color. Her blog is about her efforts to do so.

Full Spectrum

Stir Magazine articles on color in various architectural and design applications. For example, colors for beauty salons, schools and rugs.

Living Style

Design blog by Kelly Porter, interior designer and owner of Porterhouse Designs.

Material Colors

Architect Phillip Koski of Minneapolis writes this blog about color in residential, corporate, cultural and urban design projects.

Stir Magazine by Sherwin-Williams

This is a fun publication. While limited to color, the range of subject matter is vast.

Use of Color in “Brutalist Architecture”