Function Design House

We have a love/hate/turned love again relationship with red, and what better day to highlight that than today, the reddest of all days. ♥️

Red doesn’t blend in. It doesn’t quiet itself to be more palatable or easy to work with… and maybe that’s exactly why it’s worth embracing. Let bold be bold: both in life and design.

What we love:

Red is bold. It’s deep, emotionally charged, and demands attention in a way no other color can. It transforms a space, sets a mood, and encourages warm connections. It also has the longest wavelength in the visible spectrum (620–750 nm), making it one of the first colors our eyes register. This makes red elements seem closer, more prominent, and impossible to ignore.

What we hate:

Have you ever tried to match a shade of red? Or balance it in a design without it taking over? Red is pigment-strong and dominant, meaning it doesn’t desaturate easily. Unlike blues and greens, which have a wide range of muted tones, red resists softening—when you tone it down, it often shifts toward brown or gray instead of becoming a subtle, neutral version of itself.

To complicate things, red behaves differently in print vs. digital formats:
• CMYK printing: Red is a secondary color, made by mixing magenta and yellow.
• RGB (screens/lighting): Red is a primary color, meaning it can’t be created from others.

This dual identity makes red unpredictable.

TLDR: Designing with red is a challenge. But luckily, we love those.

How we ended up LOVING it:

We met the challenges of red by intentionally

• Contrasting it with neutrals (black & deep brown) for structure.
• Keeping it as the only non-neutral in the palette to avoid visual overwhelm.
• Layering in rich textures (velvet, suede & matte) to create depth instead of flat intensity.
• Controlling lighting to avoid unwanted red casting on skin/surfaces.
• Breaking it up with negative space to let the eye rest.

Red is a force of nature… but when used with intention, it can be luxurious, moody, and undeniably dramatic rather than overwhelming. That’s why it works so well in this design! Happy Valentine’s Day y’all!