The goal of my artistic development work was to deepen my knowledge in the area of colouring for products. In my practice I have worked with colouring in several fields of product design, in different materials and contexts. Since I started working as an industrial designer in the 90’s the importance of colour for the success of the design has become more obvious in recent years. Colour expertise from material suppliers and trend institutions are regarded as truth and many companies rely on their forecasts. The strategies and choices of colour can be made without the designer.
Scanning through colour history to find ideas related to colour and form I found that this is an area still to be explored.
In this work I have had two different tasks that I wanted to look at. My first challenge was to see if I could make colour suggestions for a product/form regardless of trends and prejudice. My other task was to see if I could find a creative way of working with colour to boost the process. Testing my creativity by performing colour studies conducted by chance.
The intention was to see if these two different approaches would converge in some way by testing new strategies to approach colour and form. I hoped to find a way as a designer to strengthen my professionalism and I also wanted to find out if the exercises were valuable for teaching colour on form as a subject.
Our perception and ways to interpret colour is influenced by experience, social norms and short-lived trends. In my process I wanted to be free from conventional thinking and have a norm critical approach.
Reflecting on the result there is still much to be explored in the field of colour and product. To continue this work I can see many tracks and one would be to explore the connection between function of a product and its colour. Another track would be to look at the intuitive part of the colouring process versus design method.