Readymag Design Almanac: Color

One of the things that inspires me now is the infinite range of colors. For me, color is as significant as music. And when I think about music the vocabulary is so huge: Indian music, Mexican music, the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, Beethoven, Bach — I mean it’s infinite.

What there is to notice is so extensive. It has really to do with your mood, to what extent you are open or to what extent you have the patience for it. I sometimes feel overwhelmed by what there is to notice. The ability to notice color is a kind of muscle; exercise that muscle and you will see far more colors than you ever believed existed. There are lots of things that wake you up to take notice. For example, if you order vanilla ice cream in a cafe you may not notice its color, but there are many colors of vanilla ice cream. Just to go out in the street is sometimes amazing. There’s always a dog or a cat whose color you’ve never seen before, or somebody has thrown away a tin and it’s shining in the sun. Color is everywhere and the question only is how much you notice it.

Look at the street — buildings don’t change color very much; they do a bit because of the light obviously. But the clothes people wear are affected by fashion. Maybe in metropolitan cities more than in provincial cities — I don’t know. But if I go into Regent Street in London, I may notice that the color of the street has changed because of the fashion, the clothes people are buying. I imagine that last year more people were wearing black than five years ago, when they were probably wearing more grey and blue.

It’s very important for designers to push the capacity to notice, to see more than they thought possible. And this is certainly true with color. It’s also very important to push your ability to put yourself in the shoes of other people. Like any form of exercise, the more you do it, the stronger you get. Your clients may not be good at noticing, but you should notice on their behalf. There are millions of ways we can improve life for each other, but you can only start to use your imagination if you are a good noticer.

Here’s an example that happened to me recently — a new and very, very elegant restaurant called the Delaunay opened in London. For a week the restaurant was open only for friends, and all sorts of people came and gave the owner their opinions. He asked me for my opinion. And I said, I’m concerned about your tablecloths because they are linen. Linen has a texture and because of this texture there are millions of little grey holes. And because of the texture of the fabric, there are thousands of little shadows.

The effect of that is that the light from above shining on the tablecloths does not reflect up to the people. So the people do not look bright; with the light coming from above, they look tired. They don’t have light from below to make them look awake — which is why most tablecloths are made of cotton. The point of a tablecloth is to be a nice thing to look at but also to reflect light onto people’s faces. So if you make it out of linen it does not work. My friend said, Oh god, I just spent $20,000 on my tables! And he did not change the tablecloths.

If you ask an English company to send you their paint colors, they probably will have three whites. And if you ask a Japanese company to send you their paint colors, they will probably have a hundred whites. But even that’s not enough! For example, if I’m working with designers and they are looking in a Pantone book for a green, I will say, Look, go out with a watercolor box into Regents Park because you will find a million greens. And Pantone has only 10.

Michael Wolff

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Michael Wolff is a highly regarded British designer, co-founder of Wolff Olins — one of the world’s most iconic and reputable design companies. Michael has worked as a graphic designer and art director in the sphere of corporate branding for over 50 years. His clients include Audi, Renault, Volkswagen, Citibank, Citigroup, Shell and BP. Michael, who studied to be an architect, worked as an interior designer and product designer early in his career, but in 1965 he joined forces with businessman Wally Olins and switched to graphic design. Michael was the first to use images of animals in contemporary branding and by the end of the ‘60s had revolutionized graphic design in the field.

Color is a visual experience for the viewer’s eyes and brain. It’s cool to make this experience unique each time. I think the sensation of novelty experienced when you look at certain colors is very important. That’s why new, unhackneyed colors are always very advantageous and why the fashion in color changes so frequently.

Transitional colors resulting from the mixture of basic colors are in fashion now — for example, yellow plus green #E4FF33 and blue plus violet #523BFF. These are shades for which you won’t easily find names in the usual lists.

This year, bleak and subtle colors (earthy #6D8256, vinous #B34F70)

are also in demand — just because they haven’t yet worn out their welcome. I don’t much like such colors, but in combination with classical gold, silver or bright acid colors they can be interesting. There are several basic colors that never die. The absolute leader is black, of course.

Black is always popular, and monochromatic combinations of black, grey and white are now much used both in the fashion industry and in graphic design. The electro blue #003DFF has stayed popular over many years — it has the right energetic vibe.

The natural and fresh yellow #FFEE2E is constantly used because it allows designers to come up with a shade that works for their particular project, conveying the proper emotions, saying the right thing. For the 15 years that I’ve been in the design industry, I have seen many changes in the particular yellow used, but yellow never annoys me if it is used modestly.

Present-day digital design tends to use plain, bright colors, frequently in sophisticated gradients. Don’t forget that there is often a big difference in the same color online and offline. The screen emits light, and that makes the difference. In addition, different materials and textures also make the same color look different. Colors and textures substantially shift the shade of the color, depending on the reflective properties and the white balance.

It’s almost impossible to make saturated cold colors — cold green, bright blue and everything from blue to violet — look good offline. Without backlighting, they don’t contribute much. Orange Pantone also looks much better online than offline.

But such problems are largely manageable now, at least partially. New chemical paints containing light-reflecting particles have come on the market, and thanks to these particles, these colors show a very subtle gleam. But most print shops don’t use such paints.

Proceeding to a new project, we at first investigate what colors are used in that niche and then choose between the typical colors and color combinations (so as to remain in the category) and very atypical colors. Each choice has its advantages and drawbacks. In general, choices depend on the brand’s communication strategy.

As a rule, we look for forms and ideas simultaneously and work in monochrome. Only when we have decided on those do we move to work with color. These days the colors linked with different product categories often intersect. Here’s a fresh example with orange color.

Recently, we launched a new high-end product in the European market — a DNA-based skin-care complex, whose identity is based on orange #FF6C0B. BORK, yet another of our clients, also works in the high-end segment and also uses orange #FF5900. But BORK uses it mostly as an accent. Their identity is dominated by black. Paradoxically, orange is commonly thought of as a “discounter” color and as the color of the travel industry.

In a rebranding for Skylink mobile, we also used orange. Skylink offers mobile internet for those who travel a lot and visit places that lack internet. Using images of beautiful places and orange color, we got the right voice and tone for the company’s communications.

Crucial here is the amount of orange. If there’s not much of it, the product looks high-end, but a large amount of orange in combination with plain, chunky fonts makes the product a discount offering. If you employ delicate highlights with orange and choose the right shades and color combinations, your orange identity looks high-end.

Workmode

Cool use of gradients and work tone in the photographs. It’s nice that the typography remained black and white. This work looks fresh and up-to-date, despite the fact that the color combination is not new.

Sila Sveta

Take care of your eyes! Cool use of onscroll gradients. Good use of black and white in the text and headlines. The background gradients were chosen so that the black and white text remains readable.

Budgy

Good example of multicolor combinations on one screen. The onscroll animation also adds to the overall good impression.

Throughout the years, my relationship with photography has developed and matured. My relationship with the world has changed as I have learned to see, to notice. A photographer continues to photograph, even without a camera in hand. I see every day as a countless series of photographs. Color is a component of these photographs, and I act as colorist.

My relationships with color developed gradually. At first, I mimicked other creators. I love how photographers Harry Gruyaert, Esther Teichmann, Saul Leiter, Sarah Moon, Pieter Hugo and Araki Nobuyoshi work with color. Sergio Larrain, Anders Petersen and Irving Penn are very strong in black and white. Then I finally found my own photographic style, and I have stayed with it. I process all my images by combining Photoshop and Lightroom from Adobe, more or less always going through the same manipulations in the attempt to recover the sensation felt when taking the photograph.

My photographic work is less intellectual than sensitive. I like chiaroscuro. I love green forests, and I usually process my pictures by adding a yellow cast.

Julien Coquentin

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Julien Coquentin is a self-taught photographer who lives in France and Canada. He began a career in photography at the age of 34 and juggles it with a second job as a night nurse. Julien’s first photographic series, Early Sunday Morning, was devoted to the streets of Montreal and was posted on his blog. Julien’s photographs are a kind of personal diary — the main themes are childhood memories, moments of city life and reflections on the interaction of nature and urbanization.

Max Orlov

Julien Coquentin