White light contains red, blue and green light, and you can divide these colours using a prism (or looking at a rainbow). The absence of all colour is black. Red, blue and green are called the primary colours, and you get other colours by combining them in various ways. The more colour you have, the paler it gets, and closer to white. This is called additive colour.

Humans can see colours that don’t exist as colours exist in our brains, and our understanding of it is restricted by the limitations of our eyes. Our eyes don't perceive the light as it actually exists; the three types of cones in our retinas respond to different ranges of wavelengths, and it's the combination of those cones' responses that cause our brains to perceive specific colours.

The power of colour can help you in your career. The colour of your clothing for job interviews, along with your personal presentation, can have a great impact on an interviewer’s first impression of you. For jobs in accountancy, wear a suit or classic dress in a conservative colour – like navy or dark gray – with a white shirt and a tie.

Not really sure about which colours will look good for you home? Just go with the 60-30-10 rule. Curious? Colours can be divided into a space in terms of a 60-30-10 percentage so that it looks appealing. The human eye tends to love symmetry and a perfect symmetry is created when colours are used in this scheme. An overall theme comes alive in the 60 percent hue, unifying the colouration. The 30 percent provides visual interest and the 10 percent provides that silver lining. A practical way to put this in use is to divide the colours into percentages: 60% of a central colour, 30% of a secondary colour and 10% of an accent colour

Colour schemes are an intelligent way of painting your home. Various combinations, contrasts when put together tastefully, can create magic. Do you feel like you don’t understand colours that well? Don’t fret, simply turn to the colour wheel for inspiration. Get down to choosing two main colour schemes to avoid clutter. The two types could be complementary and analogous colour schemes. Complementary colours are across from each other on the colour wheel, such as red and green, blue and yellow, or purple and orange. Analogous colours are next to each other on the colour wheel, such as yellow and green, blue and violet, or red and orange.

Understanding the value of colours is a good way to start. Value is the lightness or darkness of a colour. Poorly balanced spaces in terms of value: one side of the room is too dark versus the other side, which is light in value, is visually unappealing. Design your interior space by taking inspiration from nature and you will never go wrong. For example, the ceiling can be light just like the sky, the ground dark and the walls can be of medium colours like the surroundings.