Perk up with reds, relax with blues

Press, 13 July 1985, Page 9

Perk up with reds, relax with blues

By

Linda Harrison

When Leatrice Eiseman wakes up in the morning and still feels exhausted, she looks for a helpful colour. When she is touring and working away from home she needs red, when she is back at home relaxing she needs blue and green. Ms Eiseman, an American colour and image consultant, bases her approach to colour on the emotional response it brings from people. Her book, which she is touring Australia and New Zealand to promote, introduces the reader to her concept of colour palettes, organised in colourtimes. She invented her colourtimes under the influence of Monet’s impressionist paintipgs which made the same object look quite different when portrayed at different times of the day. From those paintings she developed her sunsrise, sunlight and sunset colourtimes. Ms Eiseman believes that people each fit, more or less neatly, into one of the three colourtimes and “Images in Colour” helps the reader find a niche and learn how to use it to best advantage. It also includes a rundown on the probable likes and dislikes of people by their - favourite colours. From that the reader learns that red can speed up the pulse, increase the respiration rate and raise blood pressure. People with red as their favourite colour are likely to be winners, achievers, intense, impulsive, active, competitive, daring and aggressive. Those who dislike red are possibly bothered by its aggressiveness and intensity. Some people turn away from red to the calmer colours for rest and relaxation. Yellow sparkles with optimistic activity, orange people can be fickle, browns love simplicity and comfort, beige people are well-ad-justed and practical, greens are fastidious, kind and generous, blues are trusting and conservative, purples are creative, whites are neat and immaculate, while blacks are conventional, conservative and serious. Ms Eiseman believes people all use colour without thinking, in much the same way as she reaches for red when she needs perking up. In other ways use of colour is more deliberate — as with advertising. “Most people going down the supermarket aisle have 0.03 seconds to make up their minds which product to buy. Most people shop quickly.

“It is the product that catches your eye that you buy, either because you have seen it advertised or simply by impulse,” she says. Therefore, she believes should pay as much attention to the colour of their packaging as they do to advertising, to capture the attention of the shopper who is not looking for a particular brand. “Most of it is subliminal and subconscious.” Many advertisers put opposite colours to good effect, allowing them to intensify each other and draw the shopper’s eye. She cites washing liquids packaged in blue and yellow. The blue represents cleanliness and the blue of water used for washing, while the yellow represents the sun used to dry clothes in. The combination should be eyecatching, and a winner Ms Eiseman, who has a degree in psychology and a certificate in counselling, di-

vides her time between working as a private consultant and teaching her job to others. Her colour consultancy service helps people from all walks of life ranging from a woman returning to the workforce and wanting a change of image, to the president of a big corporation wanting to convey his company’s image through uniforms, stationery or surroundings. The Christchurch hotel room where she was staying came under fire because it “violates my sense of taste.” “They probably had good ideas in mind but somewhere along the line they got shuffled. There are too many moods of colour that aren’t working together.” Hotel rooms aside, Ms Eiseman has been pleasantly surprised with fashion and the use of colour in New Zealand. “I expected that perhaps fashion would not be as up to date as it is.”