E98: Intentional Color Choices: Build a Palette That Sells With Telva Chase

In this episode of Creative Juggle Joy, Delores Naskrent sits down with color expert Telva Chase to unpack why so many surface‑pattern designers struggle with color confidence. 

Telva shares the hidden gaps in art‑school training, explains why relying on personal taste can sabotage commercial success, and offers a clear framework for choosing colors that resonate with your market. 

She walks listeners through common mistakes—being out of sync with trends, market misalignment and playing it safe—and provides practical exercises like recoloring a design three ways to build confidence fast.

Ready to ditch palette paralysis? 

Hit play to learn Telva’s simple exercises and start choosing colors with purpose. 

If you find joy and value in this conversation, please consider supporting the show so we can keep bringing creative wisdom to your studio.

Guest Telva Chase Links:

Posts | Truffle Art Design

Truffle Art Design - Telva Chase

Empowering Surface Pattern Design Learning Tools at Telvas Toolbox

Telva's Instagram

truffle_art's shop on Spoonflower: fabric, wallpaper and home decor

Telva's Books on Amazon: Amazon.com: Telva E Chase: books, biography, latest update

Transcript

Delores Naskrent: [00:00:00] Hey, friends. Welcome back. It's Delores here. We're here with the Creative Juggle Joy Podcast again to talk about balancing creativity, business, and everything in between. Today's episode is one I know you will resonate with, 'cause so many of us do. We're gonna be talking about color. Not just color that looks nice, but color that works, the kind of color that helps your design stand out, helps you connect with your buyers, and helps you to actually sell.

My guest is my old friend Telva Chase, and she has been studying, teaching, and working with color for nearly five decades. From formal art education to fashion, home decor, and surface pattern design, Telva brings a rare mix of deep color theory knowledge, which is really cool, and real-world business expertise, so the combo.

Telva, I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to the podcast.

Telva Chase: [00:01:00] Thank you so much, Dolores. I'm so happy to be here to share all about color. It's one of those topics that people just love but also feel intimidated by, so I'm excited to talk about it in a way that feels supportive and doable.

Delores Naskrent: That's exactly why I wanted to have you.

I see so many talented designers who quietly struggle with color even though everything else about their work is strong. Why don't we start there? Why do you think so many surface pattern designers struggle with color even when they have really strong drawing skills or they've had formal art training?

Why do they struggle?

Telva Chase: This is a really important question, and it surprises people when I say this, but most designers were never taught how to use color strategically. Art school teaches you how to see color, how to mix color- ... and how to express yourself with color, but it rarely teaches you how color functions commercially.

So what happens is we make color [00:02:00] choices based on instinct or personal preference, which is wonderful for creative exploration, but it doesn't always translate into market-ready work. There's also this idea that you either have an eye for color or you don't, and that's simply not true. Color confidence is learned. It's built through understanding context, trends, and purpose, not talent alone.

Delores Naskrent: That makes so much sense. I really see students, even those that have a great color sense, they second-guess themselves all the time, especially when they're trying to license or sell their work.

How do you think personal color preferences sometimes work against us when we're trying to create commercially successful designs?

Telva Chase: Personal preferences are powerful. Yeah. And they're not wrong, but they can quietly sabotage commercial success if we're not aware of them. We all have colors that we love and colors that we avoid- Yeah

often for [00:03:00] emotional reasons. The problem is that the market doesn't share our emotional history with color. For example, a designer might avoid bold color because they associate it with being too much, but bold color might be exactly what their particular market is craving. Or someone might lean heavily into soft neutrals because they feel safe, even when those palettes blend into the background.

Without that strategic lens, personal taste becomes the decision-maker, and that can cost opportunities.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. If you had to narrow it down, in your opinion, what are the most common color mistakes you see the designers making?

Telva Chase: I've seen three that come up again and again. The first is just being out of sync with trends.

Designers are often working either several years behind or too far ahead. They might be using palettes that feel familiar and comfortable, but the market has already moved on. So when we [00:04:00] think about Barbie pink, for example- Yes ... I still see a lot of designers using Barbie pink, and it's declining right now.

We should be looking future. We should be designing 18 months out- ... to get those clients that are going to be manufacturing goods. The second mistake is that market misalignment. A palette can be beautiful but completely wrong for its application. Colors that work for nursery products won't necessarily work for menswear or home decor.

Understanding the end use is just as important as choosing attractive colors. The third is what I call the safe palette trap. Designers default to neutrals out of fear.

They think safe equals professional, but often it just means invisible. Strategic boldness actually attracts better clients and stronger opportunities.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah, that safe palette piece really hits home. I have seen that time and again when I'm taking big courses, and then [00:05:00] I see other people emulating the teacher's color scheme rather than being original.

I see so many designers doing beautiful work, but it just blends in. How do you think designers start building that confidence? Really what we're talking about is the confidence so they're not stuck playing it safe all the time.

Telva Chase: No, confidence comes from having a framework. When you understand why a color choice works, you're no longer guessing.

Even small intentional risks feel manageable when they're backed by strategy. You don't need to overhaul everything. You can test one accent color, shift saturation slightly, or adjust the undertones. Those small changes build confidence quickly.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. One thing I really appreciate about your teaching, Telva, is that you frame color as a business skill and not just a mysterious artistic gift.

Can you talk about that a little bit more?[00:06:00] 

Telva Chase: Absolutely. Color directly affects pricing, licensing success, and perceived professionalism. Yeah. Art directors read color fluency immediately. I don't know if but when art directors and buyers are looking through portfolios or emails with embedded images, color is 90% of their 90 first seconds of making a decision.

Strategic color signals experience and confidence. Yeah. And when we treat color as a business skill, we stop spending days stuck in palette paralysis. Yeah. Decisions become faster and more intentional. Intentional is my new word for 2026.

Delores Naskrent: I love it.

Telva Chase: And my students are tired of hearing me say, "Oh, yeah, I gotta be intentional."

You're not asking, "Do I like this?" You're asking, "Does this serve the goal of this design, and does this serve my target market?"

Delores Naskrent: I love that shift in thinking. You've put it [00:07:00] totally into the words that I think instinctively think, but I've never put it into words. Maybe it would be helpful for you to share an example where a relatively small color adjustment made a big difference.

Do you have something that you can give me an example of?

Telva Chase: Sure. Yeah. I'm mentoring a girl here in Oregon, and she keeps pitching her work, and she keeps not hearing anything back. So I had her tweak her palette just 10 to 15%, and she landed her first licensing deal, and she was just gobsmacked. She was like, "What?"

Just that little tweak in color. And it's often just a saturation adjustment. Yeah. A temperature shift. If you've got a warm palette and there's nothing cool and opposite temperature from what you're working with, there's no pop. There's nothing that really stands, makes your design stand apart from [00:08:00] others.

Yeah And sometimes it's just introducing that one strategic accent color. You've seen these beautiful warm autumn designs, and there might be a little spot of fuchsia or a real bright blue. Yeah Just a little less than 10% of the design itself. And the design itself doesn't change, but the way it's received does.

That's the power of strategic color.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. For someone who's listening who feels unsure about their color choices right now, what would you suggest as that one practical thing they could do this week to try to figure it out?

Telva Chase: I always suggest starting with what you already have. Take a recent design that you've already done that you love and recolor it three different ways: one version that feels safe, one that feels slightly uncomfortable, and one that's clearly trend aware.

Then [00:09:00] compare them. That exercise alone teaches you more than endless Pinterest crawling.

Delores Naskrent: That is so much of a relief to hear. Honestly, this is something that I almost mirror those things when I'm talking about design with my students, 'cause I'm always saying .. if you're gonna do a collection, for example, you're doing a collection of greeting cards, set your goal on creating 5 or 10, because sure as shooting, you're gonna get to that 10th one and you're gonna finally have caught the real technique and then you- can go back to that first one and really make it work. So I'm hearing the same thing. That's what you're saying with color. So I think the repetition, like you're saying, like doing something, a project that you've already done, but just making those little changes, that will help them build their confidence with color.

So- ... I personally know you know that color confidence takes time. What would you say to someone who [00:10:00] feels behind, and I hear that word a lot, or they worry that they should already know this?

Telva Chase: Yeah. There's no finish line with color. I've been working with color since an early age, and I can't believe I'm still learning about color.

And there are days that I just ignore everything I've learned, and then I wake up on Thursday and went, "Ah, I knew this. Why wasn't I applying it?" So even experienced designers are always learning because trends evolve and markets change. Confidence grows through repetition and reflection, not perfection.

Every strategic decision you make builds on the last one.

Delores Naskrent: I love that so much, Telva. Really, that's so fantastic. When I think about that type of teaching that you're doing, I know that is something that is almost like- written between the lines in art school [00:11:00] and all the places where we as artists look for training, and it's almost like it's not properly covered.

It's, people are not given the actual strategies to do this. So I love that you've just put it all into a nutshell. So before we wrap up, what's one thing you hope listeners remember the next time they sit down to work with color?

Telva Chase: Let's see.

Delores Naskrent: Loaded question. A loaded- Very loaded question.

Telva Chase: Remember that color isn't a always, it's not about being right or wrong. It's about being intentional. When you choose color with purpose, everything else gets easier.

Delores Naskrent: Yes. Thank you. That is so helpful. And I've made that I've done this little exercise, the one that you talk about, and I've got a palette that I absolutely love.

I've got a whole collection built around this gorgeous color palette, and then I change it, and then all of a sudden I realize that palette wasn't right. [00:12:00] This is the good palette. So- ... it sometimes changes- ... the way I present things or how I, put it out into the world. I've done that more than once, changed it completely and then been actually happier when I thought I knew the exact right way to do it in the first place.

Telva- Yeah ... thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today. I know this conversation is gonna help a lot of designers feel a bit calmer and more confident about color. I know that you have a bunch of teachings for color in your Telva's Toolbox. And I'll link everything in the show notes. Anything that you can give us, Telva, we'll pass on.

And to everyone listening, remember, color confidence isn't about perfection. It's about learning, it's about adjusting, and it's about trusting yourself a little more every single time. So until next time, keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process. [00:13:00]