#WorldsFavouriteColour: Michon, Fraser, Morris

It’s official, we’re addicted to checking the latest submissions on G . F Smith’s worldsfavouritecolour.com. If you find anything more instantly uplifting than a page full of people’s most-loved hues then please, let us know immediately. 

I'd never wear this colour on my body, but I'd certainly like to be in an environment where this was the ambient tone. I was aiming for the colour produced by an excess of warm sunlight on crisp white – a kind of sun-drenched white beach vibe, which is a highly relaxing thought to me. 

Colour to me I suppose means “mood”. If you were to describe a space to me, inevitably you'd get to its colour, which is probably one of the key elements of what kind of mood that place has. That said, when I visiting the Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo, walking through a series of rooms, decorated devised to give insight into a variety of living styles throughout the decades, it's quite clear that colour choice (e.g. in wall colour or fabric) was also made based on cultural background, class, age. So colour can also be an access point to so much else.

Well, I was born in Germany, and then lived in Quebec City, both places which — in the 1980s — seemed to have a thing with brown. I remember a lot of brown carpeting, a lot of brown corduroy, brown dolls, brown food. 

Red is my favourite colour but it must be the right shade — a straight pillar box red — not too orange, not too blood-like. I struggle to find the right red but when I see it, it’s instant attraction.

Colours are one of the greatest stimuli bestowed upon our eyes and alert us to so much nuance in our surrounding world; colours marry beautifully with tactility and light; colour gives allure to objects and alerts us to dangers; colour affects our emotions and helps us to create markers in what would otherwise be a monotone planet.

If I think back to my childhood, red played a big part in our home. It was the 80s and primary colours were big: we had a bright red plasticised tablecloth on the kitchen table from which we ate and made mess everyday; a huge pyramid-shaped red cloth-covered pendant light hung over this table; and my dad specified bright red Vola mixer taps throughout the house which all of my friends marvelled at but were totally normal to me. I was recently alerted to a picture of me as a kid wearing jeans with a bright red jumper - nothing has changed there then!

My favourite colour changes from day to day depending on my mood but if I had to pick one it would be green. There is a sort of spiritual secret in it that seems to soothe the soul. For me it is the colour of calm, renewal and hope. 

Beauty and individuality. Colour is so emotive, it somehow speaks to our subconscious. I think it's fascinating that the tint, tone and shade of every hue can mean different things to each of us depending on how it's presented and what our life experiences have taught us about it.

My earliest memory is hard to pin point but it would probably have to be my bright red wellies that I had as a kid. I thought they were the coolest. They were the first object I can remember being particularly fond of specifically for their colour. 

In more recent times, the places that I've been lucky enough to visit around the world have left me with very vivid memories of colour. Perhaps the most spectacular was seeing the pink sand of Petra and the Wadi Rum in Jordan last year; it was like being submerged in pure pigment - a feeling I will never forget.