In 2006, Mondo commissioned Giulio Bertagna and Aldo Bottoli's B&B Colordesign Studio to conduct a research project on colour. The study arose from Mondo's belief that surfaces such as rubber and vinyl, especially when coloured, can contribute towards improving the quality of environments, especially public spaces.
Mondo continues to develop products that, through colour and design, improve the quality of life of the end user.
They are technologically advanced and purposely designed to satisfy the requirements of specific areas of use while reducing the costs of the product lifecycle. Mondo manufactures products that can be recycled at the end of their useful life and continues to upgrade and improve products in accordance with future international standards.
The result of the research project was a completely innovative palette of colours organised according to use.
The new colour range was designed on a scientific basis, thinking in terms of combining aestetics and the psycho-physiological aspects of colour on the end user.
HML SYSTEM
The new colours designed for the workplace have been grouped according to the HML system created by Giulio Bertagna and Aldo Bottoli of B&B Colordesign and are arranged on thematic cards. These are intended to help designers choose colours and generate samples according to chromatic groups (yellows [Y], reds [R], blues [B] and greens [G]), and orders them according to colour frequencies (high [H], medium [M] and low [L]), that correspond to to long, medium and short wavelengths.
The New Colours Project emphasizes the tones, saturation, and levels of transparency considered appropriate for different kinds of use and different rubber and vinyl flooring.
The colour designers have created different collections that offer an overlap in terms of colour blends. They aim to promote the use of rubber as an original and revolutionary material as unique as wood, rock or marble in terms of its own well-defined identity.
The colours of the themed product palettes are like those of real palettes, on which a painter’s invention of colours are essential to create the harmony and mood of the composition.
All the samples forming part of the same palette can be matched easily and work to develop the mood of the palette itself. Through this the process of colouration is rendered simpler, and enhances the possibility to create surface effects that are consistently different and unique.
The selected colours are lean heavily towards the yellow family, in order to add a touch of sun and brighten up the treatment rooms. There is a muted orangey-red which is a great idea for common areas or canteens. The blue range is oriented towards green, a little darkened and muted, and the two greens are organised in order to create inlays that offer a rebalancing, reassuring effect in order to minimize the “operating theatre” impression that bluish greens might impart.
It is a myth that the best colours for a hospital are mostly those around cold green or blue because they are "tranquillising". If not properly counterbalanced by low-frequency colours (orangey yellows, oranges and orangey reds), these colours can produce a state of bleakness, depression or excessive introspection, triggering negative thinking and anxiety and inhibiting the patient’s ability to communicate.
The selected colours are all from the yellow and green families. The colours suggested have all been taken from the natural environment and all belong to the tones and shades of leaves, grass and earth. This colour source makes them extremely easy to mix and match. Even the seemingly brighter tones form part of a biological memory that makes the mood pleasant, reassuring and welcoming. Particular attention was given to the problem of elderly patients' difficulty in moving about, hence a focus on “reading the ground” and thus the choice of natural colours. These colours make it easier for they elderly, who often have reduced vision, to focus and achieve a balanced “interpretation of the ground” as they walk around.
In some cases, it is a good idea to use inlays in order to create special pathways and highlight special areas in patients’ rooms and common areas. This requires strongly contrasting colours, yet always colours that appear non-invasive and not excessively harsh on the eye.
The colours selected are evenly balanced over all four colour families and arranged into groups of consistent brightness.
This makes them particularly well suited to inlays with a low level of contrast in order to create a soft and bright multi-coloured effect.
The effect is to suggest open areas, helping the child to achieve a comfortable adjustment to the hospital environment.
The colours are bright and reassuring, with no tones, saturations or brightness that might contribute to states of anxiety or depression in the young patients. The range offers a fairly gradual progression of hues and covers the entire spectrum of colours.
EDUCATION – DAY CARE AND PRIMARY SCHOOLS
The colours selected for day care and primary schools see an expansion of the yellow and red families. The lightness values are quite high while the saturation values are low, maintaining a certain contrast in order to allow stimulating and bright matches.
EDUCATION – SECONDARY SCHOOLS
The colours selected for secondary schools have a strong presence of yellows and reds but, when compared with day care and primary schools, are darker and more saturated. The colours are very stimulating, involving and in harmony with the liveliness of the students who can easily identify with them.
In the palette of colours chosen for universities there is an increase of the blue and green colour families where the chromatic values became darker and the saturation decreases to more gentle and solid tones. Overall they are very well suited to matching but can also be used individually with distinctive, introspective and attractive colours.
The palette offers three colour groups with different degrees of brightness, well distributed between the four different colour families. Included are contrasting colours with a strong identity, particularly suited to an office environment. It allows for high class style but also provides muted colours designed to avoid visual fatigue. Low, medium and high-contrast inlays can be created for different levels of flooring reflection as a response to lighting that is often too uniform. Careful use of the palette can work to improve perceptions of comfort in the workplace, responding to a need often expressed in work environment surveys.
The yellow family leads this palette, in order to achieve sunny, welcoming colours that stimulate people to buy. One bright red and one muted shade are the only elements from the red family, while more space has been given to the greenish blues and green. The sole exception is violet. As with all the palettes used for inlay flooring you can see how easy it is to match the colours, even within the same family, in order to create pathways or highlight certain zones. The need to make walking around easier has also been considered, especially in larger shopping centres where customers cover large areas on foot. Visual fatigue certainly does not encourage people to spend.
The first Mondo surface developed on the chromatic HML system's basiss are: