How much do you love gray? We Americans have been obsessed with varying shades of gray for a handful of years now. Personally, I have loved Sherwin Williams gray palette the most. Common uses have been gray cabinets, gray painted walls, gray linens, and even gray hair!? – what is up with that? (those young women that haven’t turned 40 yet, must think it is cool).
Gray, Gray, Gray. I must admit, I am getting a bit tired of it now, however for all of you who are obsessed with this color, I have to tell you that we are seeing the gray trend come to an end. The good news is you can still use gray, because it has taken it’s place in the Hall of Fame as a very well loved neutral, and will stay around indefinitely. So, if you ask me to use Gray, I will – but we may want to look at a new twist…Green-gray? Blue-gray? Purple-gray? Let’s try something a bit different.
Gray fun facts:
Crayola has 120 colors, but only 2 of them are gray! Gray and Gray-blue, strange there are not more, because the human eye can distinguish about 500 shades of gray. If you go to Crayola’s website you can see the entire palette and color families.
Grey, is the British spelling and Gray is the American spelling. It is an achromatic color, meaning, it is a color without color. What?!
Someone described gray this way, “it is an unemotional color. It is detached, neutral, impartial and indecisive – the fence-sitter. In the meaning of colors, gray is conservative, boring, drab and depressing on the one hand and elegant and formal on the other, yet never glamorous.”
But another said this, “Gray is the color of intellect, knowledge, and wisdom. It is perceived as long lasting, classic and often as sleek or refined. It is a color that is dignified, conservative and carries authority. Gray is controlled and inconspicuous and is considered a color of compromise, perhaps because it sits between the extremes of black and white. Gray is a perfect neutral, which is why designers use it as a background color”.
I think both descriptions are accurate.
If you want to weigh in…comment on my facebook page.
