The NCS Colour Centre, the South African agency for the international Natural Color System®, has introduced a new one-day training course in Advanced Colour Design. This builds on the Basic NCS Use of Colour in Architecture course. It looks in-depth at the use of colour in design and architecture, the interaction of colours and how designers work with colour design. It addresses colour groups and colour combinations for interior and exterior use.
The Advanced Colour Design course has been assessed by the South African Institute of the Interior Design Professions (IID) and validated as a Category 1 CPD (continuing professional development) activity carrying 2 CPD credits.
The new course will be run by the NCS Colour Centre from July 2012. It is structured around a series of modules and exercises that train the ability to recognise similarities and differences between colours and to understand and use the symbols that record these similarities and differences.
The exercises involve the analysis and grouping of colours and develop an understanding that enables the systematic arrangement of colours.
The first exercise, for example, looks at simultaneous contrast in lightness on a grey scale, showing how the lightness of a colour sample changes according to the background and how the background influence can be compensated for.
The next exercise looks at simultaneous contrast in hue and nuance, showing how a sample colour changes in different ways – in hue, whiteness, blackness and chromaticness – through the influence of different backgrounds.
Further exercises train the ability to recognise similarities between colours in terms of specific colour attributes, which range across factors including lightness, hue, nuance, whiteness, blackness, chromaticness and saturation.
Students then prepare their own colour palettes for interior and exterior colour design, taking account of the analyses and systematic grouping of colours learnt through the exercises.
