Learning to see
Taste looks like something people are born with. Most of it is four or five things that can be taught, and the first is that light comes before color.
Read these in order rather than by subject: each one rests on the one before it. Every step below names the single chapter to open first.
A design qualification. This route is about judging what is in front of you in your own rooms, not about producing drawings for someone else.
The route
-
Before color, light
Interior Lighting
Every judgment about color is really a judgment about the light it is sitting in. Start here rather than at the paint display.
Open atHow Light Works in a Room: Lumens, Lux and Footcandles
-
The vocabulary
Color Design
Hue, value, chroma and warmth: four words that turn “it looks off” into something you can describe and then fix.
Open atHow to See Color: Hue, Value, Chroma and Warmth Explained
-
Why the paint chip lies
Color Design
Undertones, and why a color behaves one way in the store and another way next to your floor.
Open atHow to Find Paint Undertones: Color in Context Explained
-
Reading a material
Home Finishes
Ratings, labels and warranties: how to tell a genuinely durable surface from a well-photographed one.
Open atFlooring Samples, Ratings, Labels and Warranties Explained
-
Where the eye lands
Art Framing
Spacing, height and scale for a group of pictures. The rules turn out to be measurable, which is the surprise.
-
Where the furniture goes
Space Planning
A room reads as considered when the paths through it work. That is a layout problem before it is a decorating one.
Open atHow a Room Layout Works: Activities, Paths, Furniture
-
The same eye, on a page
Basic Graphic Design Coming soon
Type, spacing and hierarchy for a flyer, an invitation or a sign.
Open atWe will name the chapter here when the manual is published.
Everything here is free, needs no account, and can be opened at any chapter. The other routes · all the manuals.