Jody Turner: Design Interviews
Eames Demetrios: Grass Root Vintage
Eames Demetrios is the grandson of the famed design couple Ray and Charles Eames and works with the Eames Foundation upholding the family design heritage.
“My grandmother, Ray Eames, had an amazing gift for color memory. She helped link color to project, not only in textiles, but in exhibitions, chairs and films. The foundation wrestles with new applications that extend and engage the integrity of the Eames design philosophy. Blik wall graphics and the partnership with the premium paper company Neenah stand as examples.
“An ongoing personal project centers on Joshua Tree (California) and one of its small homestead cabins. I am finding an alternate history through the care of one such cabin, working with the layers of color to reveal and enhance its history. When it comes to color, both natural and human-made, the desert sun is the great equalizer.”
Beatrice Santiccioli: Original Color
Beatrice Santiccioli is an Italian designer who lives and breathes color for clients such as Herman Miller, Biomega, Gilbert Paper, Nike and Swatch.
“In my work it is important not to follow but remain open to new color and graphic design experiences in fashion, art and cultural trends.
“I have a background in painting, color theory and color emotional psychology from the Scoula Politecnica di Design in Milan. This plus years of travel for Swatch helped structure my approach and expand my vistas. Yet I feel a passion for and nourishment from my painting. I develop colors for each particular situation, yet the colors I personally love are emotional connectors to life memories like the green of the countryside of my childhood.”
John Acevedo: Earth Ambience
John Acevedo is a senior footwear product designer at Adidas USA who uses photo inspiration in his color work. The natural, vibrant colors translate well into his future-driven athletic footwear assignments.
“Color is plasmatic fluid to design, without which products would lose character and integrity. Color is what brings a product to success, yet it is not a simple matter.
“I work in the ‘top secret’ section of Adidas. Our projects are on different timelines than the rest of the company. Since we are anywhere from three to five years from the retail marketplace, I look to outside industry palette influences. Nature is an amazing colorist, and I couldn’t resist taking cues from photos I’d taken on a recent trip to my grandmother’s house in the Dominican Republic.”
Photo: Buk Jackson
Fumi Watanabe: Global Juxtaposition
Fumi Watanabe is a young illustrator/designer from Japan who infuses a sense of color and pattern influenced by her travels into the product and wall murals we see in Starbucks today.
“The Starbucks mural shown here and at the top combines Nordic textile and Japanese screen patternings. An overlay of soft texture, color and shape creates depth and richness. The colors match the Starbucks retail blue ‘brew’ or water-and-earth palette with a dash of smoky, burnt orange as an accent. The overall feel is a modern, organic and personal take on coffee house culture.”
Amy Ruppel: Artisinal Design
Amy Ruppel is a full-time artist producing imagery that lives harmoniously within the modern home. Amy builds her clientele through word of mouth, via online presence and blog activity. She sees the influential link between art and design and is taking her two-dimensional work into print and soon into three-dimensional product design.
“Color is function, tool and vessel. It carries, harvests, sleeps, kicks, rivals, pleases, marries, withers… and enjoys. I use color as a scene setter, a jump starter, a way to relax. I borrow my colors from the sky and the grass and everything else moved by the wind.
“My work uses fusions of colors from slivers of photographs of trees, grass, light and gravel. The shapes derive from the simplest shapes of life: the imperfect circle from the nucleus of a cell, a drop of water or the heavenly center of a bloom. The colors and shapes are then laid beneath beeswax, to secure, mute and strengthen the tones.”
Beth Kepler: Textile Applications
“I build color palettes, color combinations and merchandising stories for companies who design and manufacture apparel, equipment, hardgoods or footwear. This work normally happens 16 to 22 months before a collection hits the market. I utilize color-trending services and my own market research and intuition, distill the information and then translate it into specific color palettes and product sets. Among others, I have worked on color for Smartwool, RipCurl, Fisher-Price, Black Diamond, Camelbak, JanSport, Pearl Izumi, Atlas Snow Shoes, Keen Footwear, Target and Timberland.
“Women-specific colorways, color prints and patterns are really trending in the marketplace. Here are four examples from a print collection I designed — stripes, bubbles, modern floral, and geometric floral. Key words in the brief from which I built the prints include fun, energetic, spring, fresh, geometric and youthful. Using bright, lively colors with a similar value coordinates, clashes and intersects vibrantly.”
