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Interior designer Rocky Rochon presides over the Paint Laboratory in Seattle, along with colorists Jeffery Parks and Nancy Meyer. Each Rocky Rochon Paint chip is hand-painted, rather than printed with ink. It’s a more laborious process, says Rochon, but it’s the only way to capture the true nature of each hue, including how it changes in different light conditions.
We’ve all been there: standing in
hues you can use
What you don’t know about color can hurt you, so take in these valuable tips from the ever-spirited Rocky Rochon. Written by JAIME GILLIN : Portrait by Tim Aguero
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GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY
front of a paint chip display in a hardware store, head spinning. Rocky Rochon is here to put you out of your color-selection misery. According to the Seattle-based interior designer, picking a shade from most brands’ decks is an exercise in futility. “Who is going to paint their rooms most of those colors? They’re hideous!” To counteract the glut, Rochon recently launched his own line of paint: 50 fail-safe hues, each available in eight values stepped incrementally from light to dark, and “all in a range you can actually use in a room,” he promises. He’s also created 60 vivid shades, nine charcoal grays, and nine whites. Unlike most commercial paints, Rochon’s are saturated with colorants in complementary hues, making for richer, more dimensional colors. The line is a natural evolution for the interior designer, who has long created custom colors for each of his projects. In fall 2013, after his go-to paint shop closed, he snagged its star colorists, Jeffery Parks and Nancy Meyer, and opened a shop of his own. Based in a small, chic storefront in north Capitol Hill, the Paint Laboratory is on a mission to educate people about color, and it plans to open outposts in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the coming year. In addition to Rochon’s paints, the shop sells a selection of other brands and creates custom colors in a variety of textures and finishes, including metallic, suede, and Venetian plaster. Rochon recently sat down with GRAY at the Paint Laboratory to dispense some colorful advice. »