7 ways I use Colour & Design Psychology in my consulting 

I am often asked by designers and other creative professionals how they can bring colour and design psychology into their work in a practical way.

It usually comes from those who create intuitively. They love the creative flow yet things can feel a bit tricky when a client asks them to explain their decisions.

You might recognise this moment. You choose a colour or a layout or a material because it feels right then suddenly you are asked to turn that feeling into words. It is usually the moment when the confidence wobbles a little.

Many designers are realising that “trust me” is no longer enough. Clients want to understand what sits behind the creative choices. They want to feel that every decision has purpose.

I remember feeling exactly the same. I needed something that allowed me to explain the thinking that had always felt instinctive.

Bringing colour and design psychology into my process changed that for me. It gave me a way to describe the choices I was already making.

This is why I am sharing seven of the ways I use it in my business – they are a great place to begin.

They are just some of the ways I use colour and design psychology to support my own design work with more ease and efficiency which helps me deliver repeatable results my clients love.

Here are seven of the ways I use colour & design psychology in my consultancy work

1. Uncover colour + design style my clients ‘really’ want
I remember being told in my interior design training that our clients don’t know what they want, it’s for us to tell them. In my experience our clients do know what they want. They often struggle to find the words to articulate it.

That’s why the first step in my colour & design psychology framework is an analysis which allows me to uncover what my client really wants but might not have the words to express.

Through asking key questions and actively listening I uncover exactly what my clients want in a way that leaves no room for doubt or surprises further down the track and I have complete clarity on my client’s objectives and desired outcomes.

This helps me identify potential pitfalls down the track which is one of my superpowers and a skill that comes from my project management background.

2. Remain objective

A common challenge I hear from designers is that they present designs to their client and they don’t like them and we can take that personally and it can be really hard. And often what is inadvertently happening is, we have allowed our personal tastes, likes and dislikes to influence our clients’ designs. 

That’s why I love using my colour & design psychology framework because it removes that entirely and I can remain completely objective every time I’m getting a brief from a client. 

The framework allows me to remain objective throughout the entire project from the analysis phase through to the testing and measuring phase to the final sign off of the project.

3. Back up my intuition
When I look at a design and I have a gut feeling something doesn’t look or feel right, that’s my intuition telling me something’s not right. I hear this from designers all the time. They are very intuitive and they will sense when something isn’t quite right when working with a client’s brief or at any stage of the project.

But what can happen is when we try to explain something to our clients we don’t have the logic and rationale to back up those gut feelings.

That’s where colour and design psychology is indispensable in my work because it gives me the logic and rationale behind my gut feeling so when I’m delivering my results and my schemes, I can articulate specifically why I have chosen the colours and design style in a way my client understands.  

4. Future-proof designs
Gone are the days when clients were happy with schemes based on this year’s trends to redo it all again next year, or timeless designs being limited to just using ‘neutrals’. That just doesn’t cut it anymore.

So one of the ways I use colour and design psychology is by creating unique, authentic personalised designs that do stand the test of time without having to rely on the latest ‘must have’ colour which ultimately creates fleeting short-lived creations.

5. Deliver measurable results
I’ve been told many times you can’t measure colour, but I’ve worked out a way and that’s part of my colour and design psychology framework.

The final step in my work is reviewing the results and measuring them against the desired outcomes that were gathered in the analysis phase which could be through measuring changes in behaviour, well-being, productivity, sales or revenue depending on what outcomes my client wanted.

Like any good project manager, I always finish by testing and measuring. At this review stage it becomes clear if any tweaks or adjustments need to be made.

6. Complement Biophilic design

Biophilic design is often interpreted as just being green and wood. It is much more than that. I use colour and design psychology to complement and amplify people’s ability to use biophilic design as colour and design psychology is also a nature-led methodology. It allows me to deliver unique designs that utilises nature’s full gamut of colours and design styles which go far beyond green and wood.

7. Troubleshoot
Everything I mentioned above is what I use in the process from start to finish with my clients.

But often I’m brought in by architects, designers, brand or marketing teams either part-way or near completed projects when something isn’t working. It could be when a client is rejecting what they are being shown, don’t understand why they are being offered the schemes they are or they aren’t getting the results they wanted.

So I come in and use my colour and design psychology framework to see where the issues lie so that we can find a solution and fix it for the person who has hired me and the client they are serving.

When people discover the colour and design psychology methodology it changes the way they are able to interact with their clients, create designs clients love and do that on repeat. As you’ve seen above, it takes out the guesswork, it removes misunderstandings and really allows you to listen deeply to what your clients want so you can deliver on it, which results in a happy client and a happy you.

If you want to take the guesswork out of your design decisions and understand the beliefs that stop many designers from using colour with confidence, , download my free e-book, The 10 myths that Limit You Using Colour Successful. It’s the perfect first step before you begin applying this methodology in your own work.

Colourfully yours,
Karen

Originally posted 20th September 2023
Updated 17th November 2025