An inspiring podcast on everything you need to know about color!
Honouring Identity with Jessica Bantom
This is a conversation every designer should be listening to as Jessica Bantom and I address the elephant in the room, designing inclusively for a more equitable world in which culture, identity and humanity is honoured. But how may you start that conversation at work or with your client? Jessica speaks from her own experience and research when she says, listen and just ask the questions to that person that indeed is so different from you. What role does color play in honouring identity?
Jessica Bantom is a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) practitioner and workplace strategist whose mission is to enable individuals to take immediate actions that create meaningful outcomes for historically excluded people. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Marymount University, Bantom is a skilled management consultant with over 20 years of experience, a compelling speaker, and a certified facilitator and coach with a passion for helping people and organizations activate the values of DEIB to become more culturally competent and thrive in our increasingly connected global economy. Bantom is also active in the interior design industry as an interior design and color consultant and as an engaged advocate committed to promoting DEIB in the industry and in practice. You can learn more about Jessica and her book, Design for Identity: How to Design Authentically for a Diverse World, at JessicaBantom.com.
Color Abundance with Andreea Hartea
How does our past influence the perception we have of our world today? Where does color stand in our daily perception of things and more importantly, how do we select the correct colors that truly make us feel good? Andreea Hartea will explain how we perceive color and how to select the right color for ourselves and our clients.
Andreea Hartea was born in Romania and currently lives and works in Italy where in early 2020, she established RAH Colour Consulting Studio collaborating with architecture firms, interior designers, and international companies. She studied Visual Arts at NABA and completed a two-year program in Dynamic Hypnosis and Analogical Psychology at the CID_CNV Institute in Milan. To deepen her expertise, she pursued additional courses on color by "Max Luscher," attended seminars on meditative and hypnotic practices, while she researched topics like neuromarketing and neuroeconomics.
Her research primarily draws inspiration from psychology and consciousness, focusing on the mechanisms of unconscious and emotional perception. Her fascination with the human experience fuels her exploration of the inner universe as a means to comprehend our surroundings.
She derives great satisfaction from assisting individuals in their daily lives and uncovering the underlying reasons behind their experiences using the power of color.
Her primary objective is to educate people on approaching color from a more intimate, authentic, and conscious standpoint, acknowledging that color affects each individual in a very unique manner. Currently, she is devoted to promote the concept "subjectivity of color” as she has been privileged to deliver lectures to prominent companies and international platforms such as Edison, PPG, Archiproducts, and TedxRoma.
Having moved from theory to practical application, she developed the RAH Colours test, which aids professionals closely engaged with end clients in addressing the challenging question: "What color should we choose?" Whether it involves materials, products, or surfaces, this question invariably arises in interior design and often proves a point of frustration for both professionals and clients alike.
She provides guidance on implementing this methodology, and currently works on creating a platform that will provide professionals with their own personal color consultant.
Moreover, she collaborates with studios and boutique agencies specializing in brand identities, particularly for small-scale brands.
Color Provocations with Keith Recker
Keith Recker is a color poet and you will hear that immediately when listening to this conversation, even if it's not all roses we talk about. Keith does not refrain from talking about how color continues to create political and social divides and often triggers consumers into buying promises not kept by brands. The mission of his latest book Deep Color is to indeed reveal the misperceptions on color and to disclose the truth about each color in the spectrum. Not all that is white is clean, simple and pure..
Keith Recker brings 35 years of adventuresome, insightful, multicultural experience in marketing, merchandising, trend and color forecasting, and content development to his role as Editor in Chief and Co-Owner of TABLE Magazine. With strong roots in food and drink, TABLE also explores travel, interior design, fashion and jewelry, and other facets of modern living, in both print and digital formats.
Recker is the founder and editor of HAND/EYE Magazine, a print and online publication whose 10 issues cultivated a global following. The magazine profiles forward-looking creators, faraway cultures, ancient craft traditions, and cutting-edge design. HAND/EYE saw humankind’s creative future as handmade, which demands attention the struggle of artisans to earn decent livelihoods through preservation of ancient traditions, innovation of new ones, exploration of new markets, and educating the consuming public about the cultural and economic importance of their work. HAND/EYE is on a pause right now, but ripe for rebirth.
Recker is also a trend and color forecaster whose almost 20-year client list includes global influencers Pantone, WGSN, Stylus, Color Association of the United States (CAUS), and more. For 16 years, Recker has been creative director of Pantone’s annual home publication, PANTONE View Home. For eight years he was on WGSN’s global trend and color team. He serves on the CAUS home forecasting committee.
The revised second edition of his book, True Colors: World Masters of Natural Dyes and Pigments (Thrums Books) was released in September 2020, with chapters already excerpted in London-based Selvedge Magazine, NY Textile Month Journal, and reviewed in many more, including Metropolis. He is co-author of PANTONE: The Twentieth Century in Color (Chronicle, 2012), published in eight languages. His new book, Deep Color: The Shades That Shape Our Souls, debuts in September 2022. His writing on color and culture has been published by the Studio Museum of Harlem (catalog essay about Stephen Burks), Museum of Art and Design (catalog essay about African craft and its messages about the future), Brooklyn Rail (comparing the work of potter Alex Matisse with the performance work of Marina Abramovic), The Santa Fe New Mexican, and more.
He has also worked in the non-profit world as a director of consumer marketing at CARE International and executive director at Aid to Artisans (as well as a board member and volunteer for 22 years). Through his involvement with Aid to Artisans, he has worked side by side with artisans from 50 countries. He has served on the boards of Art in General, Chez Bushwick, as founding chair of The Quiet in the Land (a project which brought leading contemporary artists into communities in the developing world) , and the International Folk Art Market, where he was also pro bono creative director and head of the Marketing Committee from 1996-2020.
What is Color with Judith van Vliet
What is Color? A question I ask all my guests on the podcast and the variety of answers has been amazing. It is such a basic question yet perhaps so hard to answer as color is such a complex topic and can have so many different meanings. Listen back to what my guests replied to this important question over the past year from their own perspectives working in design, architecture, science, food and psychology.
The Language of Color with Karl Johan Bertilsson
Karl Johan Bertilsson is an intriguing person as you will hear, a great storyteller as he brings us along his journey towards color from a scientific point of view to the psychologic part of color as we will touch upon the topic of color semiotics. He will explain how one can communicate in color, how we may connect to others through color and use color as a an important message. Karl will highlight the fascinating differences in color perception between the European, Latin American, Russian and Chinese market. Teaching color is his true purpose and this comes forward very clearly in our chat.
Karl originally studied Applied Linguistics and he ran his own language school in Mexico for 11 years. In 1997 he moved back to Sweden and switched to the color language of NCS, becoming responsible for establishing NCS world wide. Since 1997, his full focus has been to support different Industries, the Architect and Design Community and Universities with color solutions.
His first Color Trend work shop was with CMG in 2007 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and since then he has worked continuously with colour trends globally, responsible for the NCS colour trends.
In 2016 he established his own design company MRKRL AB, offering design solutions of interiors, products and branding where the aesthetics, the function and meaning of colour always have a central function. His clients are mainly based in China, Europe and Russia. All of this while still consulting for NCS Colour AB as a Creative Director.
Exploring Color Cycles with Montaha Hidefi
Montaha will shed a light on her international background and how this has influenced her color career and the many color differences and influences among the regions in the world. She has been tracking color cycles from the early 2000's to better predict future trends and will highlight an interesting cycle that she has seen comeback in this year. Being part of Color Marketing Group and working on the Executive Committee as VP of Color Forecasting is what kept her going in these restrictive times, as she explains the importance of being part of a color tribe and its network.
Montaha Hidefi is a Canada-based, internationally celebrated color archeologist, writer, and public speaker. As a Color Archeologist her role involves examining and observing the past tendencies, to understand the present trends and interpret the future color forecast for business purposes.
With an extensive background in the coatings industry, color forecasting, marketing strategy and international business, she established color forecast palettes and color trend books concepts for many companies around the world.
Montaha lectured about color and trends virtually and in-person in countless trade shows, conferences, and universities, and conducted workshops on color around the world.
She participated and contributed as color forecasting panelist on many global organization committees such as the Mix Magazine, MoOD Textiles Trend Book, and Dutch Design Trend Book. Her articles on color and trends were published in trade publications such as Door Security and Safety, PCI Magazine, Powder Coating, Powder Coated Tough, Product Finishing, Rugs News andDesign, Retail Environment, and PPCJ.
Montaha is the author of Groping for Truth – My Uphill Struggle for Respect (2018), The Role of Color in Design (2019), and co-author of Colour Design: Theories and Applications (2012, and 2017).
She currently serves as VP Color Forecasting at Color Marketing Group.
“Excellent series about color. It’s a complex topic and Judith approaches it from a variety of angles with her guests. Always entertaining and insightful. I look forward to listening to each episode and learning something new about color and the visionaries in the color world.”
— Review Apple Podcast