This Designer Created Her Own Color System That Considers Your "Aesthetic Narrative" and How Colors Shift Three-Dimensionally
"The method of working with color at the intersection of physics, psychology, art, and narrative," she explains
Choosing a set of colors to live with on a day-to-day, look-at-all-of-the-time level is a tricky thing to do. It's the reason color systems appeared, to make it all a bit less imposing, and so we can easily work out what goes beautifully with what.
The color wheel in interior design is the most prevalent of the color organizing models, famously splitting hues into warm and cool tones and helping us to see how colors complement each other — and since it’s been around for hundreds of years (thanks, Sir Isaac Newton) it can sometimes be hard to think of reds, yellows, purples, and greens in any other way than a divided-up rainbow disc.
But there are a few modern alternatives, one of which is specialist color consultant Fiona de Lys’s eponymous Delysian Colour System, which considers color in a holistic and nuanced way, taking into account our histories with it, as well as how it shifts under natural light.
A color consultant with years of industry and research experience, as well as working partnerships with brands such as Benjamin Moore and Edward Bulmer Natural Paint, Fiona’s goal is to create beautiful homes in personal dialogue with those who occupy them. Her human-centered design philosophy embodies color, emotion, identity, healing, self-care, and growth.
So, What Is the Delysian Colour System?
Fiona's method considers color as a three-dimensional thing.
"The Delysian Colour System is a method of working with color at the intersection of physics, psychology, art, and narrative," explains Fiona. The methodology centers around the principles of how color moves with light and shadow across a three-dimensional object and of storytelling.
“It enables people to find their voice in the language of color, and to use it for expression and as a framework for making complex design decisions across surface, material, and architecture," she adds. "It’s both a tool and a philosophy, practical, individual, and completely adaptable."
The system is made up of two parts — a personal aesthetic narrative which creates a visual color map, and a color perspectives assessment. Fiona teaches it through workshops (the UK’s first immersive color and training experience with real-life examples), as well as talks, one-to-one or group sessions, retreats, and consultancy.
How Is It Different to the Color Wheel?
Have you ever considered painting your living room according to color psychology?
The approach develops a personalized way of working with color combinations, building signature styles and palettes imbued with narrative. "The Delysian Colour System differs from existing theories in interior design as it steps away from categorizing color in a purely two-dimensional and linear way (such as by lightness or saturation)," explains Fiona. "It instead encourages thinking about the movement of color in dimensional hues as well as density and how it relates to light, form, and shadow — in much the same way as an artist works."
Unlike the usual color sorting-out methods, one of the Delysian Colour System’s most one-of-a-kind qualities is that it’s grounded in subjective and dynamic preferences. Mood or persona drives the initial color choice, which the system shifts to transition through the home with cognitive ease or unexpected (coherent) contrast. As Fiona says, "A home becomes a unique autobiography, each room a chapter with its own tone, temperature, and truth."
Why Do We Need a New Color System?
Fiona's color system treats choosing colors much like the way artists do.
"I developed the Delysian Colour System because there was a lot of uncertainty around the combination of colors — which were often restricted to either whites or shades, or color pops that rely on matching with surrounding hues," says Fiona, who felt palettes had become predictable and repetitive.
She turned instead to exploring the way artists paint to express their style, and how to translate multiple layers of information — from taste to the impact of changing light — into a color strategy.
"The traditional ways of working with color feel flat and predictable," Fiona says. "Before the Delysian Colour System, there was a lack of information available on creating personally meaningful schemes — they tended to reference things such as the historic use of color or have a lifestyle or environment-based viewpoint, which don’t support a more subjective perspective or individual narrative."
How Can the Delysian Colour System Be Used in the Home?
We should be decorating with color, not just based on trends, but on how it tells our own personal story.
A step-by-step solution for complex color decisions, the Delysian Colour System helps us to be more efficient and clearer when creating tailored decorative directions. "It creates a color map to work from and navigates a scheme by reducing the problem of option-overwhelm, helping designers and homeowners think about the bigger picture around narrative and style," explains Fiona. "It’s especially useful for understanding the relationship we have with a space, particularly during or after chapters of change, and can also make you more confident articulating reasoning around color use."
When putting it to use in choosing a paint color for a room, it’s clear that the system’s multi-faceted structure takes a lot more into account than we’re used to. "There’s consideration for the temperature of the light, aspect, the outside view, the eye-line to different rooms or colors, the intended use of the space, and more," says Fiona. "The Delysian Colour System addresses these factors with a logical framework to map color markers into a scheme to build upon."
The approach also identifies color as a secondary component to emotion and purpose, emphasizing meaning and reason over pigment. "For example, my spare room is earthy red, inspired by the idea of drama, theatre, mystery, and tradition, but I used cool shadowy tones on the woodwork due to its north aspect," shares Fiona. "I use architectural features to bend colors around corners, to shift into different but compatible hues or segue across a color chart for aspect and value."
We’re becoming increasingly aware of how interior design and the senses interact — look no further than the rise of neuroaesthetics in interior design — but to systematically put color alongside mood, memory, and feeling into a practical model represents a significant evolution in the decorating conversation.
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