R/m Design Almanac

Color

Julien Coquentin

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.
 
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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.

My photography involves a subtle balancing of light and dark, and the challenges are different depending on whether I use film or work digitally. But in all cases the natural light determines the colors. For example, I have recently been taking photographs of a nearby forest. The wild vegetation, the piles of moss and the rotten wood created beautiful forms in every imaginable variation of green, and the light of the foggy morning on which I took these images, made all these nuances even more visible.
 
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It is difficult to identify what gives structure to the sensitivity of an individual. I strongly believe in the innate. It seems to me that the sensitive part of an individual is already there at birth and flourishes later in childhood. The village where I grew up relatively freely and the forests around us taught me a certain relation to the world. As far back as I can remember, I was always collecting — stamps, animal figures, stickers, key chains, etc. I had a special relationship with these objects, which I felt were alive. Each night before I fell asleep, I would be worried and get up to group the objects in pairs so as not to leave one alone. We never really change. I have the sensation of still being very, very close to this child, even though I will soon cross the invisible barrier of 40 years. Otherwise I was a reader of comics for a long time. I was a regular at the library, where I sat in a corner, devouring piles of comic books. My favorite authors were Régis Loisel (the author of Peter Pan) and Patrick Cothias.
 
Edward Hopper is my favorite painter. I stole the name of one of his paintings for my first book (Early Sunday Morning). I also love Turner, Caravaggio and the High Waters by Pierre Soulages. Of movies seen in the past few years, I consider very visually powerful the following: Laurence Anyways (2012, directed by Xavier Dolan), Drive (2011, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn), and Bullhead (2011, directed by Michael R. Roskam).

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The guardians of the Balcans
This is a fascinating project with an aesthetic reminiscent of science fiction. I think of the Star Wars series. Neutral colors are part of this very strange atmosphere.

Saul Leiter
1950s

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A yellow triangle, a blue circle, a green square, 
again a triangle but this time a green triangle, 
a yellow circle, a blue square — these are utterly different beings and utterly different in effect.

Wassily Kandinsky

Harry Gruyaert

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Caravagio

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Pieter Hugo

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Esther Teichmann

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Color is my obsession, joy and torment the whole day long.

Claude Monet

Bryan Schutmaat

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Photo: theredlist.com, bryanschutmaat.com, estherteichmann.com, wikiart.com, pieterhugo.com 

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Color

Oleg Paschenko

When I work on a project, the color decision usually comes to me at an intuitive level quite early. For example, if I’m doing a customer’s project, the color decision takes shape when — or even before — we exchange references and moodboards.
 
I could say that each large work I undertake sums up a specific period in my life. It has distinct boundaries or at least a distinct inception. It is a kind of movie that incorporates everything that I see, hear, smell, think, all my life circumstances, including my interaction with the materials provided, the client, the references, the cultural context, etc. It’s a synesthetic experience: I perceive color as a felt characteristic of all this — along with the smells, speech, everything else. Thus color is essentially part of the overall spirit of the project.
 
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My choice of colors is rarely made cerebrally. That happens only if the client has his own specific color preferences.
 
Sometimes it’s important to me that the color hex code should resemble a beautiful word, one that doesn’t contain letters and numbers I don’t like. I don’t like number 2, number 5, and letter b, yet I love number 1, number 7, letter c and letter e. Thus I’m likely to replace #15b2a6 with #17c0a7.
 
I long believed that a beautiful color or color combination has the nature of what Immanuel Kant called Allgemeines Wohlgefallen (something generally accepted). I believed that the beauty of color was inherent and that the ability to sense it was inborn, akin to an ear for music. I believed that people’s tastes in colors were alike.
 
And then I suddenly realized that people who seem to be sane in all other ways had absolutely wild and crazy tastes in colors. For example, I sincerely hate brilliant blue that has become so popular in recent years, all of its shades, from International Klein Blue to #0000ff.
 
I don’t understand how people love it and use it, even how anyone can touch it without nausea and pain. Blue blood oozing from eyes! Blue is bad (in Russian, the word ‘blue’ also suggests alcohol and alcohol abuse)! But adult, reasonable and sane people declare this as their favorite color and use it a lot in their work — and other people look at these blue pictures with unguarded eyes and praise them. How can this be? What’s wrong with me?
 
So I stopped relying on my personal color perceptions and started relying more on the socially acceptable. Take most popular color sets, from the Adobe Color site, for one. 
 
There’s nothing special about them, but they are OK. You can adjust each set of colors to your wishes, but even that’s not necessary.
 
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To help my students better understand color, I sometimes ask them to write an essay on why they love a certain color or color combination. I believe the ability to express aesthetic impressions in words is very important; doing so, you come to articulate the cultural and semantic echoes you find in an artist’s work and become conscious of your synesthetic experience. Or I send my students on a walk with certain specific tasks: for example, they have to look for a specific color and follow its path in such a way that every step of its path comes to constitute a coherent story.

Oleg Paschenko
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Oleg Paschenko is a media artist and designer and long an art director at Russia’s topnotch Artemy Lebedev Studio. His awards include bronze at the Cannes Lions and gold at the New York Flash Film Festival. He has held numerous personal exhibitions. Currently, Oleg works as an illustrator, designs books and teaches at the HSE Art and Design School in Moscow.

Sin City
Robert Rodriguez,
Frank Miller, 2005

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The Art of Caring for the Dead (2009) is a joint project with my wife, the poet Yanina Vishnevskaya. The texts are mine, the black and white photos are by my wife and the whole book uses a single color. Russian political activist Misha Verbitsky wrote in 2002: “The laws of the physical world dwindle and give way as the human civilization of the time wanes. People of the Tradition had only three colors: white, black and red, and they used the same word for them all. Apparently, the breakdown of the visible spectrum of light into distinct colors was an occurrence of a subsequent epoch. The same goes for all other physical laws — all are false insofar as our world is untrue.” My book is concerned with the border between black and white and white and black; thus, it had to be achromatic. But I also wanted it to burn and Mercury to run through it. So I introduced red. But not a blatant red. I felt the red had to be unsaturated, and I was also inclined toward an orange or scarlet. For me, however orange-red was too explicit and tautological: the book talks about fire, and presenting words about fire in the color of fire would have been too much. I wanted to achieve something dispassionate: cold fire, cool red quicksilver. I found my calm in #e71937.
 
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My favorite movie is Metropolis by Fritz Lang. OK, that’s a joke; let it be Sin City. The reason for this can be found in the quotation from Misha Verbitsky that I cited earlier. I love when the weapon of color is used only under great duress, when life itself is at stake, or to deliver the final coup de grâce on the viewer. Or when color is a poignant sauce, not the main dish or garnish. (and any of several other synesthetic metaphors.)
 
Truth be told, I had my most vivid color experiences in real life, not in a cinema or in a museum. These experiences were inextricably bound to their life contexts so it’s quite pointless to talk about them.
 

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The cover of the second issue of Flat File features my beloved, rather chilly, “not exactly red.” This time it is #c51b24. There is so much of the color here that it is deafening. This is something like a zombie apocalypse: all are dead but alive. This cold red is paired with black, of course, but true black is impossible here. That’s why the role is played by blue #090e22. To some extent, in this context the blue is even more black than the stupid #000000. This color combination is morbid, but it is counterintuitively precisely right.

Photo: youtube.com

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Color

Alan Kitching

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Over the years the colors I use in my work got more intense and more varied. When I started out, my color palette was black and white and red. Then I added two other primary colors — yellow and blue, which come from the Dutch movement De Stijl.
 
But I wanted to explore color. So later I moved away from this pure primary-colors approach. I began taking my own decisions to introduce new colors — lilac, purple and many others.
 
My use of color is intuitive and very subjective. It comes from the subject matter, like trees, color of houses, everything around me. My color comes from printed ink, which I mix with other special colors and a thinning medium. The colors are sometime mixed on the printing blocks directly with rollers and sometimes a palette knife. The inks are applied with careful rolling to again mix the colors on the printing blocks.
 
I was brought up with Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square. He did lots of color studies himself, and he’s really worth studying. I think looking at paintings and prints is very beneficial for a young designer. So my advice is to study the colors in the works of your favorite painters and think why is it like this, explore how the color is used and try to draw inspiration from it.
 
One of my favorite artists — Claude Monet — is a renowned colorist. The colors Monet used are very light and delicate. They are not dense. I love his paintings of gardens and particularly I love the purplish-lilac in his waterlily paintings. My personal favorite color is lilac, sort of a pale indigo.
 
Another painter whose works I admire is David Hockney: he also was a very strong colorist. He’s very different from Monet. Hockney’s colors are very vibrant and dense.
 
Today we see too much color on the screen, so at some point of time you get used to it. The movies I prefer are black and white — to me they look much more impressive, interesting and dramatic. That sets your own imagination to work. The films I have in mind are The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, directed by Robert Wiene, and The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed. I mention these two films because of the tension created by black and white with all shades between, to highlight the dramatic effect it brings to the visual power of the story on the screen.
 
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I try to make the colors I use in my works speak for themselves and add to the meaning of the graphics. This work has many reasons for the colors being what they are. Hampstead Village is an area in London where very many painters, writers and musicians have lived. The streets here are very colorful and pretty, with houses colored in blue and pink and yellow. I took inspiration from the place itself — the colors for the letters were chosen based upon the colors of the houses in the streets. The circles in this poster refer to prominent people who lived in the area; each is color-coded to accord with the person it’s dedicated to. Adjacent to Hampstead is Hampstead Heath — a very popular park with lots of big, ancient trees. When I was in Hampstead doing research on the area, I walked through this park and saw how the sun was lighting up the trunks of the trees, making them sort of glow. The lit area was bright yellow, while the back was intensely green. I also used this combination in my work.
 
This is a quotation from Winston Churchill, a phrase he said when he became prime minister of Great Britain in 1940. It’s on a black paper. I’m trying to express what he said in color: blood — red, toil, tears, and sweat, all these different substances.
 
I did some illustrations for greeting postage stamps — one says, “Want to Say Thank You,” and the other says, “Best Wishes.” The “Want to Say Thank You” is basically red and yellow because these are very friendly colors. The “Best Wishes” card I colored blue, lilac and purple, so there was a kind of contrast. In October 2006 they were issued by the Royal Mail

Alan Kitching
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Alan Kitching is one of the world’s foremost practitioners of letterpress typography and printmaking. He is renowned for his expressive use of wood and metal letterforms in creating visuals for commissions and limited-edition prints. Over a 50-year career, Alan has worked on commissions for The Guardian, the National Theatre, the British Library, Tate Modern, Penguin Books and the Royal Mail.

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Afisha Picnic 2016
Very bold use of strong colors, with effective combinations of typography and form, which enhances the powerful colors, allowing the type to stand out and be read clearly.

Color

Julian Suetin

Often people take for granted their perceptions of color and their favorite colors. Most of our clients start out by voicing the stereotypical color preferences expected by society (“a real man wants to live in a black-brown loft,” for one).
 
So our first task is to bring to light the client’s real preferences. This job takes much, sometimes tedious, persistence: with my partner Anna Smirnova we hold a series of interviews, aiming to learn about the most beautiful and satisfying places that the client has experienced, his favorite movies, his most vivid experiences. We analyze this information to come up with a large number of sample color combinations, perhaps collages of fabrics and room-finishing materials based on his favorite movies. Step by step, we get acquainted with the client and come to understand the mosaic of his or her color portrait. It may be that one client loves woods and parks, large masses of soft shades of green with bits of red, while another may be an enthusiast of classic art who responds to sophisticated, carefully combined color harmonies.
 
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A client once asked us to do the interior of an apartment he had rented. He told us about his deep interest in Eastern religions and philosophy and asked for a restrained, monochromatic interior. After talking with him, we learned that he had lived for many years in France and that he loves delicate, counterintuitive color combinations — lemon-yellow with grey, pink with pale soft blue — not every man is eager to admit such preferences.
 
The client moved into the flat we had decorated for him and, six months later, bought it. Not long after he married and became a father. I can’t say that all that happened was thanks to our work with color, but an interior based on the real color preferences of the owner is undoubtedly very helpful in nurturing personal harmony.
 
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Colors are like musical notes — there are only three basic colors, but the number of combinations is infinite. I’m not a snob, but I believe that if you want to understand color (as a professional), you need to take classes in painting for a couple of years, no matter your level. Books, articles and experts can never reveal the significance of colors. This understanding is sensational rather than rational; it comes by way of inner experience.
 
In working with clients, I usually use either vividly bright pure colors or delicate combinations of pastels. This certainly falls within the range of modern Russian interior style, which is still developing but already has some typical features: Russians are conservative but love color and light. Modern Russian interior style incorporates a sophisticated range of natural or close to natural colors in combination with elements made of natural materials. All-white interiors don’t look to advantage in Russia. Such are best in bright regions where the sea is near and nature produces intense colors. Russia is not that sort of place. When everything outside is colored in infinite shades of grey, white interiors inevitably go grey as well.

Julian Suetin
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Julian Suetin is an interior designer and creative director at BBDO Contrapunto (Russia). A graduate of the Stroganov Art Academy, Julian Suetin has worked as an art director for some of the world’s largest advertising agencies (Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett, Grey Global) and has won more than 20 international awards over the past 15 years. During all this time, he has practiced interior design as a sideline. In 2010, together with partner Anna Smirnova, he opened Vesna-Leto, an interior design business, and began working with private clients.

Orlando
Sally Potter, 1992

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We make mood-boards for every movie we like. We select the most memorable frames in the movie, explore the color schemes used, scrutinize the interiors. Throughout the years, I’ve accumulated a huge, if chaotic, collection of movie mood-boards. Absolutely the first movie that comes to mind is, of course, Orlando, an amazing film from the viewpoint of art direction, coloristics and aesthetic presentation. The art director did a really fantastic job.

At 40 I discovered that the queen 
of all colors is black.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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Every region has its geographic peculiarities, and these are reflected in the mentality of the people who live there. In turn, that mentality affects the national style and national color preferences. Japanese love interesting and assertive combinations of acid colors (as in Asian movies) for their interiors; Americans love harsh color combinations (i.e., black, white and fuchsia),
 
and Belgians and most other Northern European peoples love sophisticated, often barely distinguishable shades of grey mixed with pale blue, beige or violet.

A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick, 1968

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A Space Odyssey  is a classic for all time. The Grand Budapest Hotel, despite being overly “artificial” and “cerebral,” is still very stylish visually. My personal favorites also include Blade Runner and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.

Blade Runner
Ridley Scott, 1982

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Fargo TV series
Noah Hawley, 2014

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TV series are becoming an ever more frequent source of inspiration for me. Only some five years ago, serials were still commonly thought of as a “lower genre,” but now the hierarchy is gradually changing. Prominent film directors more and more frequently are working on serials, and talented art directors follow them. In my view, the second season of Fargo (2014), inspired by the 1996 film of the same name written and directed by the Coen brothers, is visually flawless. Vinyl (2016, directed by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger) is a source of endless inspiration for the ’70s. The plot of Downton Abbey (2010) is a bit soapy, but the interiors, for all the almost too-careful deliberation that went into them, look very natural.
 
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Every important artist is a discoverer of color, a treasure-house of information, hitherto unknown, about color. Not until Mark Rothko did we have the aesthetic of color volumes that dissolve into each other to powerful effect. Gauguin was the creator of the aesthetic of flat colors in bright and harmonious combinations. I personally love impressionists, especially the French — that’s why I used the key impressionist colors to decorate my own apartment — lilac, lavender, bright green and grey-blue.
 
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A home should offer food for the eye. The interplay of colors and shades creates a feeling akin to travel, the experience of great space. The more interesting and pleasant the interplay of colors, the more pleasant every minute of the experience. Here is an apartment we made for a young creative family engaged in the movie industry.

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Small Cars — I like this work. First of all, I love small cars and, second, this selection is itself a beautiful example of graphic minimalism. The astute combination of fonts and layout keeps the site interesting, never monotonous. The delicate framing of the photos in the same colors as the cars shown in them helps highlight the key points without distracting the viewer. In sum, the author has used the simplest of means to achieve an eye-pleasing and even impressive result.

It is a large penthouse in downtown Moscow with two living rooms. The “exterior” living room is meant for parties, large groups, but the “interior” living room (see photo) is for family and close friends. The husband, who is from the Crimea, loves bright sunlight, while his wife has a more refined taste — she loves cool, subtle shades. So in the family living room bright and cheerful shades of yellow blend gradually into blues and browns.
 
To emphasize warmth, we also built a fireplace and made the whole space warm (initially it was cold).

Photo: theredlist.com

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Color

Outro

Theory of Colors by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
The Art of Color: The Subjective Experience and Objective Rationale of Color by Johannes Itten
Pedagogical Sketchbook by Paul Klee
Concerning The Spiritual In Art by Wassily Kandinsky
Color Harmony Workbook: A Workbook and guide to Creative Color Creations
Colors of the World: The Geography of Color by Jean-Philippe Lenclos
Pantone: The 20th Century in Color by Leatrice Eiseman
Color Inspirations: More than 3,000 Innovative Palettes from the Colourlovers.Com Community
Kelvin: Colour Today by Robert-Klanten
Color and Meaning: Art, Science, and Symbolism by John Gage
Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World by Simon Garfield
Secret Language of Color: Science, Nature, History, Culture by Arielle Eckstut
ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color by Jude Stewart