Welcome back to The Lounge! Today Nick chats with Maria Killam, a color consultant, from the heart of Vancouver. The two talk trends, scrape the surface of the science of color, and cover all Maria has to offer in classes and online.
Meet the Color Expert
Finally, after spending the early part of her career in the corporate world, Maria leaped into the creative world during her early 30’s. To enter the new profession, she posted an ad in the Yellow Pages, participated in a color theory course in San Francisco, and fell madly in love with all things color!
Between spending her days mixing and matching colors for clients, teaching theory, and running her bi-weekly blog, Colour Me Happy, in 2010 she launched her first online course. Today, five classes are offered in the spring, and five in the fall. Of the students, 60% are comprised of design professionals and 40% consist of color enthusiasts. If not designers, many of the readers are homeowners working on new builds.
Trendy, but Timeless
Celebrating her 10th year running the blog, Maria is still analyzing color and helping people to understand everything it entails. She prepares her readers to make design decisions regarding color. Clients usually want to follow paint trends, rather than utilizing elements in the existing space to find a look and feel. Often people choose paint before everything else, but they should instead select a component from the room to work from. This method yields the most cohesive outcome. Maria tends to follow a timeless color aesthetic and veers away from what is in vogue.
Color Theory, Online
Beyond her consultations, Maria specializes in eDesign. Her eBooks include How to Choose Paint Colours: It’s All in the Undertones and White is Complicated: A Decorator’s Guide to Choosing the Right White. The latter is becoming increasingly popular with the revitalization of the white paint trend. Beyond these fantastic books for designers and enthusiasts alike, she offers eDesign consultations where she gives her expert recommendations.
Find Maria on Instagram and other social medias @mariakilliam and learn more about color theory or schedule a color consultation on mariakillam.com.
Color is much more than paint.
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