Color
Natural colors are mainly derived from the specific vein of clay used and the mineral content in that vein, and by the firing techniques. Most clays fire to a red or buff color. The red color is created by the ferrous (iron) oxides in the clay. Variations of white or cream are also produced. Black or gray are produced by adding manganese oxides. Color variations are also produced by temperature variations in the kiln. Higher temperatures create darker brick. A purple colored brick is produced from red brick clays by flashing the brick in the kiln. Flashing creates very high temperatures fro a short time and burns up all the oxygen in the kiln. Brick color varies even within the same kiln and the same firing. Additional colors are often produced on ordinary red brick by coating the outside of the wet brick before firing. White, creams, grays, browns, and black pigments are commonly used. Pigment can be applied to the surface by a clay slurry or by dusting with colored sand. The sand is only used to carry the pigment.
Warm colors are magenta, red, orange, yellow, and the yellow-green hues. Warm colors speed up our perception of time and produce feelings that are warm, cozy, and inviting. These colors are associated with happiness and comfort. They have the ability to bring text and images to the foreground.
Pros: They are pleasantly inviting and inherently harmonious.
Cons: There is no variety. They may be dull if there are no eye-catching color combinations.

Color Meanings:
Magenta when tinted with red to become purple stands for lush, rich, and royal.
The color red is extremely dominating. Always use this color sparingly. It stands for truth, passion, strength, courage and fire. The maroon tint represents sacrifice and bravery.
Orange is the warmest, most stable and reassuring of the earth tones. Dark orange, however means distrust, deceit. Orange is the color most associated with appetite.
Pure yellow produces sensations of brightness and warmth. It is a spiritual color that is the symbol of radiant goodness. Dingy yellow represents jealousy and duplicity.
Brown is not a neutral color. It stands for strength, solidity, and maturity.
Cool Colors are violet, blue, light blue, cyan and sea green. These colors are know to slow down our perception of time. They appear slick and professional in presentations but may turn people off because of their coolness. These colors recede into the distance. They are more suitable for backgrounds. The color blue, especially retreats. These colors are associated with sadness, depression, and melancholia.
Blue stands for heaven, divinity, divine love. It is the symbol of wisdom and the color of hope and generosity. Blue added to purple gives us the blue blood of nobility.
Green is life and is indicative of nature, youth, vigor, hope, cheerfulness, and abundance. Emerald green represents immortality. Olive green is the traditional color of peace. Darker greens are very cool.
Blue tinted with green is the iciest of all. It is associated with depression and sadness.
White is the purest of all colors and a symbol of purity and chastity.
Black signifies depression, death, criminal activities but when tempered with white signifies prudence and humility.
Pastel colors have a calming effect.

Pattern
Patterns of modular construction can be described in terms of color patterns, relief patterns, material patterns, and layout patterns.
Color patterns: By using different colors of bricks, patterns can be created on the face of a wall. Color patterns historically have been regulated by the builders ability to get bricks of different colors. Color patterns, therefore did not gain popularity until sources of transportation were provided in around the Romanesque period. The patterns are also somewhat regulated by the shape of the module used, however. Therefore, many patterns are angular or geometric. Banding and random patterns are a simple method of creating color patterns. However, much more elaborate patterns are possible. Meander patterns, diagonal striping patterns, diamond patterns, checkerboard patterns, dovetail patterns and zig zag patterns were very popular on Victorian hose construction. They offer a detailed formal aesthetic to a building.
Relief patterns: Bricks can be laid so that certain choice bricks project from the face of the wall. This can be done in a random fashion or to create a pattern. Bricks can also have their surfaces etched so as to create a relief on each brick and a resulting pattern on the entire face of the wall. Relief pattern can also be created on a wall by leaving voids where feasible or creating bricks with voids in them.
Material patterns: Other materials can be added to the wall to create patterns. The materials can be interwoven with the bricks or the can have a course of their own. Even ancient dwelling began to incorporate decoration into their walls. Other natural materials were used in conjunction with the stones in order to achieve more than one texture on a wall. Indigenous plants were many times added to the coursing of a wall giving a natural, but thought-out appeal to the modest buildings. In more modern times, simply a mixture of similar materials such as stone and brick like in quoin stones created a pattern of different materials. In many manors in Europe, different materials were inlaid in the courses to define the bays behind the bricks. This related the floor plan to the exterior pattern.
Layout patterns: Simply laying regular, modular brick in irregular ways can create a pattern. Laying them diagonally, vertically or sideways can give a different appearance to brick walls. On ancient walls this decorative technique was realized. By laying brick on angles, it turned an average brick wall into something more. As more regulated building techniques were developed, the standard sized brick allows for combinations of layout in the same wall. There are basically six methods of laying a standard brick in modular construction. They are the stretcher, header, soldier, rowlock, rowlock stretcher, and sailor. Diagonal bond and herringbone bond are also decorative layout techniques.

Shape/ Size
Bricks are mainly shaped and sized the way they are for functional reasons. They are designed to fit into today’s standard modular construction and be easily handled. Ease in handling was obviously not an important consideration in ancient architecture. They built their structures out of massive stones and therefore gave a massive, solid appearance. Many times stones were just cut to fit—any shape that would fit with the previously laid brick. Due to time constraints, that is probably not the easiest method today. Greeks cut their stones to fit together in a predictable way, but not always rectilinear. They had polygonal brick, trapezoidal brick and bricks of different sizes in the same course. Standard bricks today have a nominal size of 4" x 2 2/3" x 8". The actual size is 3 5/8" x 2 _" x 7 5/8". Three running bond courses are generally 8" tall with standard 3/8" mortar joints. Although standardization is popular for many reasons, bricks of different shapes and sizes many time offer much more to architectural aesthetics. Bricks of different sizes offer contrast to today’s standardization.

Bonds, Joints, and Mortar
A bond is how you lay the brick in a course.
Mortar is the material used between the bricks to hold them together.
Bonds and Joints are another aesthetic outlet in brick construction. Common bonds are running bond, common bond, stack bond, Flemish bond, and English bond. Many other methods can be devised depending on the shape, size, and pattern desired. Mortar may or may not be used. Ancient civilizations relied purely on the weight of one brick upon the next for a bond. Even today, though, mortar is not always used. In dry bonding with surface bonding cement, bricks are laid with no mortar and the wall is held together with exterior cement applied to the both faces of the wall like stucco. Surface bonding cement is made of Portland cement, glass fibers, and other ingredients. The coat is typically only 1/8" thick, however the wall is very strong and damp proof. When using mortar, different finishes can be achieved. Concave, V, Grapevine, weathered, beaded, struck, flush, raked, and extruded joints are all common examples of ways of finishing mortar. Extruded joints are poor joints because water can easily work back in to the joint and cause deterioration. Many other bonds and mortar joints can obviously be used, however, water retention is key in these areas and should be a main design driving factor.

Texture
Stone, brick and mud were all used as the main building materials until just recently. These materials have an inherent texture when used naturally, and they can be modified in many different ways to achieve many other textures.
The materials used: In the most basic sense, the texture of a brick is modified by modifying the sand used. A smooth texture is achieved by using fine grain sand and a rough texture is achieved by using coarser sand. Bricks can also be given more radical textures by scraping, scoring or cutting them while they are still wet. Special rollers can also produce designs on them.

The natural texture: Stone, clay, brick, and mud all have an inherent texture even when used just as they are found in nature. There needs to be little modification to a stone before it can be used in construction. Therefore, even primitive modular construction has a texture. Stone is naturally rough and jagged and therefore creates it own texture. And, when stacked up, any modular construction method will have a texture simply because of the layering on the surface. Because of that, even the first structures built have a texture even if it was unintentional. This natural use of stone gives the structures a primitive aesthetic.

Cut stone texture: Stone is a material than can be cut and formed into shaped however difficult it may be. And whether it was for aesthetic reasons or for ease of construction, stone developed a new texture when cut and coursed. The rectilinear forms of the cut stones give a more ordered, sturdier appearance, yet still can look natural and primitive when not cut too exactly. The slight irregularity of a surface casts shadows on its self and mottles the wall. Again, the coursing also presents an inherent texture to any modular wall.

Hidden texture: The natural texture of coursing of brick or stone whether regular or irregular is appealing to some and not to others. Therefore, the modularity and coursing may actually be hidden. It is somewhat of a denying of the medium as brick naturally has a rough, layered texture. Indian cultures used mud brick to construct may of there structures as it was an readily available material. However, they used to same mud as a sort of stucco to cover the texture and give the appearance of a smooth solid wall. They used the same material in tow different applications in order to achieve two totally different textures. That shows that one material can be manipulated in many ways to give various textures. The medium of stone coursing was also denied in Egypt’s pyramids. Egyptians wanted to appearance of a smooth solid pyramid so they cut their stones so precisely that one could not even see to joints, which hid the natural coursing. They also highly polished the surfaces of the stones. Stone is naturally rough and dull, however by polishing the surfaces, this allowed the Egyptians to take advantage of their naturally sunny environment and exaggerate the gleam of the sun on their monuments.

Functional texture: Beautiful texture can be developed even unintentionally by taking into consideration how the brick needs to function. Bricks can achieve different texture by making them out of interlocking shapes to disrupt the standard coursing, however this can also add a new texture. Bricks can also gain different texture by simple considerations such as ease of construction and lifting of the bricks. In Greece, large bricks or stones were equipped with handling knobs so the stone workers could lift the stones with ropes or pulleys. These knobs were sometimes left on the surface of the building and give an eye catching texture that is also functional.

Veneer texture: The texture of bricks and their coursing is appealing, however, many times buildings are not actually constructed out of those materials for cost, or speed or energy efficiency. Even dating back in to Roman times, veneers of stones of brick were used to hide the underlying construction method. Mortar was developed which aided in adhereing the bricks to the surfaces. Techniques such as opus incertum and opus reticulatum were used. They involved coating the surface of the wall with mortar and then pressing the stones or bricks into the mortar. This offered the ease of creating varied textures because the patterns and stones did not have to be structural. They could simply be decorative.
Pattern texture: Although pattern is a category in itself, it does come into play with texture. Bricks can be carved individually so that when they are placed along side one another, they create a textured pattern. It can be an irregular pattern that simply gives a texture to the walls by the bricks casting shadows on each other, or they can actually create a pattern or a picture. The latter is a difficult process which invovled cutting each brick in to irregular shapes before hand and marking where it belongs in the final construction. And that is exactly how many stone masons went about there work in Gothic times.
Perfectly imperfect texture: Even in modern times, with the technology to cut perfectly exact bricks one after another, the natural texture of stone is appealing. Therefore, stones can be recut in an irregular manner to achieve to achieve the look of natural stone. This process is called rustication. Rustication was very popular in the Renaissance on palaces. The Palazzo Medici is also an example of how texture can relate to the function of what is behind it. The first, strictly functional, public floor of the palazzo was highly rusticated. The second floor which was still somewhat functional, but held more living quarters what somewhat rusticated and the third floor which was strictly private had strict, rigid brick coursing. The function of each space came through to the street elevation and made the floor plans of the palace clear.

Bibliography:
Allen, Edward. Fundamentals of Building Construction: Materials and Methods, 3rd ed. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1999
Chabat, Pierre. Victorian Brick and Terra-Cotta Architecture, Dover Publications, Inc. 1989 Spencer Art and Architecture Library folio NA 4120.B7513
Norwich, John Julius. The World Atlas of Architecture, Chancellor Press. 1988
Putnam, Robert. Modern Masonry, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1988 (Spencer Art and Architecture Library TH 5311.P87)
Russell, Beverly. Architecture and Design 1970-1990, Henry N. Abrams, Inc. 1989 (Spencer Art and Architecture Library folio NA 712.R86)
Scrimshaw, Stewart. Bricklaying in Modern Practice, The Macmillan Company. 1920 (Spencer Art and Architecture Library TH 5501.S3)
Old Brick Architecture of Holland and Belgium, 1900 (Spencer Art and Architecture Library folio NA 1141.043 1900z)
English Precedent for Modern Brickwork, The Architectural Forum, 1924 (Spencer Art and Architecture Library NA 4120.A55 c.2)
Color Psychology website: http://web.topchoice.com/~abyers/moduleten/html//lessons/lesn4colorpsyc.htm