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Tobi's Color Inspirations pt. 2

These are my headphones I had these on on the way here and a gentleman's on older gentleman said let me see those headphones so even the product design of my headphones could be inspirational, shiny gold, but honestly, music truly inspires me in a lot of times when I'm filling up those note pads on an airplane I'm also listening to certain tunes that really kind of get me in a creative space for many of you you already are inspired by architecture because you've said that you were in the field of architecture these air more pictures obviously from my trip to morocco but architecture everywhere I was just in berlin last year I'm going to south america next year so looking for amazing on creative forms and architecture and materials and um, colors and lotina's and patterns and all of those things here's some more architecture er this is just from chicago and the being and the museum of art, you know, there s so it could be classical or very modern and they both can inspire all sorts of t...

hings and I often take ideas from classical form and use them in an updated non non traditional way s so how do you reinvent some of those old ideas that were tried and true and make them something fresh for your interiors? Um I think these are from um, scotland these were in edinburgh last a couple of years ago last summer, actually, I was there with a group of designers, and we were staying in amazing hotels and touring gardens, and so it took a lot of pictures like these that show detail of a new age and everything there's so much to look at the form and the architecture of that building that's so unique, even be something as literal as the form of a headboard in the space so you can translate it. If you don't feel like you're terribly creative, you can say this exact shape could come into a piece in your home or in a room, or you could use it to be in a less literal way and let it inspire or impact something else a material again or a fabric or something. Certainly nature. These are pictures of the beach, which I love to go to every summer in florida. The color is exquisite, the sound. I have little videos on my phone and there's many days when I'm feeling a little stressed out of being inside all day long, and I'll just watch like a six second vine video and listened to the waves and the sound of nature, but this is even in arkansas, we love to climb pinnacle mountain and she's a little trooper, because it's a hard hike, but we go up to the top of pinnacle mountain and see the arkansas river and the hills and the mountains in the little rock and how beautiful it is and there's so much inspiration there everything from birds in the sky to the whether it's morning or evening and the sun set in the air and the seasons all from this sort of bird's eye view and right there near our home like a ten minute drive from where we live and this is even just in also in my area and on the golf course and um, you know, so there's inspiration everywhere in nature um this was my backyard at my last house and I didn't even know I had these orchids and I mean, these um, irises thank you and I walked outside and they were there. So how much fun and what beautiful inspiration for color palette in those purples and then certainly fall seasons that we have all all those seasons in arkansas. So we get to experience everything from the the irises in the spring to these beautiful trees in the fall, so definitely a source of inspiration. So then what about objects that other people design so, sally, you're a product designer, right? Yeah, how do you find inspiration? Is it through other people's objects or is it travel? What is interesting if I'm trying to design it product I don't necessarily look at other products I'm I'm more like what you've been showing us I I look at the detail ing on things that I wouldn't necessarily directly relate to the rock down designing so I look att fabrics I have almost that identical photo of a beach because sometimes I think blanking and just looking at something beautiful like that allows you to start thinking about the possibilities and then I also take a lot of architecture photos because the detail ing can sometimes give me a sort of out of the box idea I mean, I'm just finding everything you're saying there is just really resonating I mean, I think that's why we have seventy professionals watching this shy as well as people who want to use this just in their own time is that you are inspiring a bunch of other people to be out to create this stuff by showing is like so many people are probably saying I used to be inspired by that and when's the last time I did go to the beach or wins the last time I took the time and on a trip planned an extra day so I could just spend time walking in the city you're going to stores or museums or other things and and, you know, product I mean all kinds of objects these air our easter eggs ellison and I were dying there's, you know so my essential oils, a gift I gave a client and this amazing ah, gold porn. And that was in the, uh jonathan adler store in soho in new york. So these are all things that came directly off my phone, or my instagram account on guy go back and look at these thes where yarns in glass go, I think, or edinburgh, it was a company that made amazing tapestries and rugs in a huge, huge product, you know, custom pieces for art installations and corporate buildings, and I was inspired by their yarns on a shelf as the actual tapestries themselves, and have hoards of pictures of these amazing colors. I'm also pattern in rugs on each of these are this is the david hicks pattern who was a famous designer, and in europe, in england and the seventies. And, you know, a lot of these air derived, the other one up there in the corner is probably derived from that same source, but I loved is a pattern that other people created most of the time. These come from some kind of historical reference, even back to the chevron we saw in the tile in morocco, here's. Some other great patterns, this's a, a designer textile designer, timorous beasties in in scotland also and it's really edgy and he does crazy stuff this is toned down for him but really amazing it was printed on red velvet as you can imagine by looking at that color um certainly inspired by furniture, other furniture designers, the lucite polka dot cartel stools or something really classic that was just a found object that we painted and re purposed and re upholstered for a client, but the movement in the shape in the style and just the little detail ing of the welt on the chair is kind of like the welt on your jacket. It could spur an idea to use it in a different way or even paint a little border around the room on a wall. So honestly looking closely at all of those details and these are the kind of images that I pin and instagram when I go say to high point market, so if people want to follow designers and see the latest in product that's all over pinterest and instagram so follow other creatives because they're detail ing and zoning in on these kinds of ideas um, I am inspired often by people this is my friend scott who's, a designer here in san francisco look, how could you not be inspired by him? Look at what he's wearing it was fabulous pants with this tuxedo and this amazing neon room that he did this is my friend alan who many people no pl and smith he's, a very well known horticulturist and landscape architect and this is his it's new but made to look old greek revival home about ten miles outside of little rock or olive and I would actually move in there so inspiring he has designer chickens, he has a two acre rose garden. He grows all his own food like I come to sit over to visit and he prepares this lunch like, you know, at fresh out of the garden, everything about him is inspirational s o I find a lot of inspiration with him, and then I find inspiration everyone from famous celebrities like you, teo friends of mine who were designers rob castle and amanda nisbet, who love color and pattern. And then my friend ron furey who's a sort of behind the scenes guy. He works with bernhardt furniture company, but he does like that real creative work for for them. And so we loved to share stories about travels and we'll talk a few times a year and he's like, oh, I just went to paris and this is what I saw so that whole peer collaboration s o you know, that idea is really not just staying to yourself and in your own mind and about what your inspired by, but kind of like all the people out on the chat room that air saying I love that toby's sort of given me permission teo be inspired again and she's validating the way I'm inspired that's what I do with these friends of mine so we have cal who was fantastic online yesterday was really interesting questions on this question is about the way you use this inspiration, toby so you've mentioned that you put it on pinterest, you take these direct photos and you've already mentioned also that use a sketchbook, which I would love to see at some point, okay, but I'm cal also asks how you, whether you use computer software so do you take the images you have and sort of manipulate them or use any sort of software? Teo continue to test the colors and to take textures and things and maybe literally apply them toe so what's on line do you use computer software? Yes, sometimes we dio and one of the I was going to mention us after where aside, I love yesterday and I forgot to mention it that's called cooler k u l e r by adobe on and it's a fun place where you can go and create your own color palettes on dh it's the place you know I mentioned yesterday that you could even if you create a color palette, it will tell you what the rgb is or what some other format if you need it for print or I designed my own fabrics and s o I have the toby fairly home textile line so ah lot of times we use computer programs on work with graphic artist to take things that I was inspired by and turn those into patterns and things that become part of our collection speaking of just to digress a little bit but is to give a shadow lamps plus because this is one of your designs so they have a fund well and I don't know if it's even announcing live on the site yet but it will be any day now they have this fun idea about shopping by trend speaking of trends on dh so they asked me to be part of this siri's of creatives who designed patterns for them and you can go on and make your own product so you can take my bamboo trellis fabric which is what this is our pattern and color it in one of their suggested colors or color it any color you want teo and you can pick different bases are hanging lamp shades or all sorts of things and create product on and they have hordes of patterns not just mine mine is just one of many many options s o yeah, very cool and what what was it called again your pattern bamboo trellis, sambu so it's based on another trend that we've seen a lot is the idea of bamboo even in furniture like the chinese chippendale chairs that have become so popular on dso and then we've also seen so many people loving and somebody was one of you I think was saying yesterday how popular the geometric patterns have become in the trellis pattern so this is sort of that perfect mix of both um and it's khun b kind of organic with the bamboo idea but certainly comes from inspiration teo nature so yes great thank you um so there's my mom I think we look alike everybody thinks they look just like she's certainly inspired me for years I remember as a child she was the person she was the creative in my life that she doesn't have a formal education and design but she has such a knack for it and she spent lots of time in detail in our own home christmas remember christmas trees I remember every year we would have some sort of crazy colored christmas tree like one year it was all mob and one year was blue in copper and you know just really having fun in life creating amazing things so this is, um a christmas holiday table scape we created together and just you know going to the nth degree with ironing on the little grow grain ribbons I mean I'm even crafty sometimes in the middle of the night creating color palettes and things with her teo inspire and a venit for, you know, having people in her home or entertaining, which is really fun. Um, and then sometimes I'm inspired by challenges. So this was the home that we looked at yesterday, and I was saying, my challenge was to blend ah, a husband and a wife who were newlyweds, and bring their style together and he's very traditional and she's very not. And she loves quirky and these unusual and crazy and forward and hip and she's really fashionable. Eso how do you blend all of those things in a space? And I think challenges are one of the best times to become inspired because you can't just go to your normal eighty twenty rule. You can't just pull out the same tricks of that you use all the time. You have to really go beyond that. We also looked at this one yesterday. That was a challenge. So this is the room that was the ceilings or seven and a half feet tall. How do you make that rooms fill? Spacious. And how do you? Another challenge of this space was it's, a walkout apartment basement for the client's son who was talked about yesterday's, an actor, in a way, and she wanted him to want to want to spend time there. So we had to create multi purpose and zones in this space that had to be a sleeping zone in a tv zone and the you know, every activity had toe happen in this space for him, and many of you deal with that here in cities like in san francisco, because you have small space challenges and you have tohave multi purpose activity zones and products and pieces of furniture working in your house all the time, so that was definitely an inspiration, and then sometimes I'm inspired these air, some of my own products, my lantern designed in my fabrics. Sometimes I'm inspired because I can't find a product on the market on dh, I'm sure sally that's, the reason why you created a lot of the products you did or why jackie o's creating things because you think I have this vision for something and it doesn't exist and you look and look and look, and you think I wish people would create more colorful lantern light fixtures or bold geometric prints on lenin says even though there are a lot of textiles out there for me. You can't use the same ones over and over for clients I used it once or twice and that's kind of about a ce muchas you can use it because people don't want the same design so being able to create your own designs and we talked yesterday that even the design enthusiasts kingo on websites like spoon flower dot com and create their own fabrics or goto lamps plus and create their own lighting so that's definitely a challenge not being able to find things I love that inspires me this challenge was a homeowner who really needed tio tame a lot of clutter and disorganization and so the before picture of their house was far different because they're really busy with two kids and they just couldn't get a handle on everything working for them and she also wanted to fill relax because they're busy lifestyle as many of us know made her feel overwhelmed all the time. So we created a kitchen with different zones and places for her kids to do their homework with vinyl chairs that would just wipe off and we created basket storage so that everything that ends up on the counter could just be literally dropped into the basket and put away so and then I used color to help create not only a spice that was functional for her through those other ways but that inspired her and it was beautiful and it was relaxing so definitely this project was driven by challenges, cabinetry, dark wall covering, um, the kitchen was actually even about eight feet smaller, I took in a back porch to expand it so she could really have some room there, tio, you know, tio grow and tio mean to feel like she couldn't move because it felt really cramped before that. So we've had a lot of questions on kitchens, and this is a particularly beautiful one. You said, I think one of your most popular designs it isthe. So can I ask you a couple of questions that we've got from the animations and I'm going to start with one that is similar, I guess in color, margaret asks. She'd like to use blue and green in her kitchen, which is being remodeled. What wall color would you recommend as the envelope for a blue and grain color combination cabinets will be white, she would sink in graves or sand or soft blue or gray. If you're looking at a two, those sort of, I guess she's going to be cheap colors that you've used here? What would you what would you look at me? I said I would go back to that color will and remember the slide yesterday that said, warm is on this side and cool is on this side and of course blues and greens are always on the cool side, but depending on what part of the color will they move to be warmer? Blues and greens are cooler, so if it's in the cooler palate, then she's maybe wantto gonna want to lean towards those grace on. If it's a more warm version of green like a lime green, she might want a little more energetic, neutral, like a beige or moving more towards kind of ah, a tan color eso is all about and again then she needs to know what her emotional goals are. Does she want, like, this client a place it's, very relaxing or maybe she's looking for something that's really energetic for her family? Because I can imagine, like, you know, cobalt er, navy with a pop of lime green could look really cheerful and sunny and bright and, you know, that's a completely different blue and green, then this blue and green actually it's interesting on this when I was looking at that when that photo first came up is that you've got that coffin ceiling and you've made it all the one color to keep it relaxed. But I'd imagine if you were trying to make that might be more active, you could have even picked. The coffer out it would have brought a whole lot of things there's a slide later when we start talking about color and I can't remember if it's today or tomorrow, where out intentionally did paint around beams on the ceiling, the beams air in that instance even stained, and the ceiling itself is a pale green. So again, it depends on what you're trying to achieve the feeling the mood on we get into color psychology next, so we'll talk about all of that specifically, but, um but yeah, so I think she's on the right track with her what she's thinking of her color choices, but itjust, she wants needs to go a little farther in deciding making some decisions about what kind of feeling she wants her kitchen tohave, which is great, and a question just came in from cow, which was, do you work with coffer ceilings and what wayne's got walls with color or metallic texture? Yeah, I use all sorts of things, so definitely with color. The image we saw just a minute ago where I said it was blending the two styles for husband and wife. You had the waynes caught at the bottom and chocolate on the top of the wall, so we were going for traditional for him with the panel molding and bold for her with the chocolate wall so it looks great. It was beautiful and we tied it all together with the drapery and all the other things happening in this space and we'll talk about how to transition colors later, but that was some of the tricks and tools I used teo bring those kind of strong contrasts of chocolate and white together and make it work. Yeah, I think it was your own personal kitchen that you showed yesterday just how switching the accessories and putting your antique cake plates yeah, energised the kitchen were completely different. It looks like on all white kitchen until I brought in all of my vintage cake plates and turquoise and jay died and suddenly it felt like a kitchen full of colored and and that's kind of like the questions she was just asking with the blue and green, it depends on how she uses them, where she uses them, how much of it she uses so there's, so many things that go into it. It's funny way we're kind of laughing in the break in a couple of days ago that it's so difficult for people to describe a space for me and me to give an answer not that I don't know the answer, but there's so many decisions that each of us have to make just to bring all of these ideas into a space what color? Blue? How much of it is it in a pattern? Or is it a solid? Is it, you know, a warmer. Cool? Is it on the window or on the chair and that's just like a tiny little pieces that the backsplash or is that all neutral? And it was the contrast or not it's there's a million little details that go into these decisions. Here's one more slide. The challenge here wass that we had this hardwood flooring that ran through the whole a large part of the house that was old, kind of dated looking a little bit yellowish, then teo, why the hardwood floors and the challenge was to decide what to do with the flooring, and I just decided instead of bringing in something like stone or new hardwood, that wouldn't be especially unique. Why not try painting it? So we painted the hardwoods and these wide horizontal stripes, and it was a creative solution. Um, an inspired solution and even the flooring. I was inspired by a room done by friends of mine who own a design firm called madcap cottage, and they had done a cottage e version of painted floor, but it was real rest iq and the paint was, you know, flicking off, and it was meant to look very cottage e, but I took that idea and brought it to this client is the opposite of cottage and very clean and simple and didn't want a weathered and mourn look but wanted wanted something really crisp, but it really translated to their spaces. Well said that was a challenge, and then this challenge we talked about a little bit yesterday was the same client bringing the husband and wife together, how to make it classic and bold hada not paying all the brown molding that he was in love with, but not to make a stodgy living room that she would hate, uh, and also to really sort of bring down the scale of these soaring ceilings to a space that would feel cozy and and enveloped them and their friends so that it didn't feel palatial. But it felt really intimate on and that's where I used the scale of the drapery that we created by sewing to solid silks together, and it really felt like the ceiling was not so high anymore because it really toned down in comparison to this giant striped the soaring ceilings. And then we repeated that color let's, fun and bright and cheerful on to move the eye around to the space in the seating area and layered it in, so that was also a challenge.