Functional Color and Design in Education Environments

Smart choices in color and design facilitate the learning process
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Kindergarten and Early Elementary

Like preschoolers, elementary students prefer a warm, bright color scheme that complements their natural extroverted nature. Younger children find high contrast and bright colors stimulating with a growing penchant for colors in graphics.

Designed environments for kindergarten and early elementary schools include spaces for privacy and active play, with open areas being the ideal place to run with abandon and expend physical energy. The visual environment must include activities for children to develop their visual acuity during the first eight years. Art materials will encourage more thoughtful interactions with color and designs. Providing soft elements such as flowers will instill a sense of gentleness, while having heavy metal toys will encourage children to play forcefully.

Enhanced organization and minimization of clutter will support children as they focus. Designers should consider mild soothing colors such as warm, soft shades of whites, light creams as a base color, with stronger, brighter mid-tone colors and accents as a focal point. Children's artwork should be incorporated into the environment to provide color and inspiration.

Middle School and High School

Middle school and high school teens have a growing appreciation of sophisticated color and tend to view primary colors as immature. Often influenced by prevailing fashion, young teens typically reject neutral colors in favor of blue, ultramarine, and their current favorite, orange. In selecting a color scheme for middle schools and high schools, there may be more leeway, depending on the objective. Subtle colors work well, such as light sage greens and refreshing blues and greens, with brighter, trendy, and more saturated hues used as accents.

Middle school students prefer bright, medium colors in cool tones such as greens, teals, and blues with orange accents.

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For adolescents, cooler colors and more subdued hues provide enough stimulation without creating distractions or inducing stress. Blue, in particular, seems to be strongly associated with math and science. High schoolers prefer burgundy, gray, navy, dark green, deep turquoise, and violet. A variety of color is important, and it is advisable to incorporate a full spectrum in designing educational environments.

Color can be used strategically in a classroom to avoid distraction from equipment like televisions, video monitors, and projectors. Another option, in the case of middle and high schools, is the use of school colors to promote school spirit.

 

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Originally published in Architectural Record
Originally published in June 2013

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