COLOR DILEMMAS FOR THE JEWELRY DESIGNER: Managing, Challenging, Exploiting and Violating Color Theory

Abstract
Color is the single most important Design Element. Most artists and jewelry designers learn about how to use and control for color in art schools. They learn about how colors are perceived. How to combine colors and maximize the appealing effects of such combinations. How the perceptions of color vary, given the context, and how to anticipate these variations. These art theories work well for those who paint. But not so well for those who design jewelry.

How Artists and Jewelry Designers Respond Differently To The Use Of Color

The artist is concerned with achieving harmony, balance and evoking an emotional response. Color theories point the way. The artist wants to be guided by these and conform to them. To the artist, color theory is more about objectives and universals. They tap into the brain’s propensity to balance things out. People are prewired with an anxiety response. Our brains have some presets so that we avoid snakes and spiders. When things get too unbalanced and too unharmonious, the brain gets edgy. We begin to interpret things as not as interesting, perhaps somewhat unsatisfying, even ugly.

Color schemes show what colors in combination yield a balance in energy and wave length signatures. For example, and with a lot of oversimplification, color theory points out that in any project, the…