The Sound of Colour
Join Colour Designer Sarah Gottlieb as she talks to cultural and creative leaders about the most influential colours in their lives and work. Through insightful conversations you hear about the meaning and psychology of colours through the guest's personal story about their own creative work.
In each episode, we ask guests to talk about their passion for colour and where it comes from. We review a significant piece of our guest’s work where colour has played an important role, and also where they find inspiration – ending each episode with the musical element "the sound of a colour”.
Be prepared for laughter, tears and everything in between.
The Sound of Colour
Stamuli - How Colour Shapes Experience in Retail Design
What if colours could transform your mood and even redefine your space?
Join me as I explore the fascinating connection between colour and design with my brilliant guests, founding partner Emanuele Stamuli and architect Alessandro Bruzzone from Stamuli.
Stamuli is an architect studio that designs high-end stores for international fashion brands, as well as residential projects and hip furniture.
They are a collective of creatives who share a rationalistic approach to design, combined with a passion for geometry, textures and of course colour.
They have worked with fashion labels such as Acne Studios, Alexander Wang, By Marlene Birger and Ganni.
You'll hear their take on how a splash of pink or yellow can alter the emotional atmosphere of a room, challenging the dominance of monochrome minimalism. Explore how the magic of colours can enrich brand identity, conveying powerful emotions and messages, while we discuss the complexities of colour perception influenced by light, texture, and context.
In this episode Stamuli share their trailblazing retail design work with Danish brand Ganni. Discover their innovative use of colours in the Tagadà collection and together, we ponder the sophistication of colourful design, challenging the misconception that it lacks depth. Their design philosophy underscores the balance between client needs and creative vision, illuminating how colours can weave stories and shape experiences in retail design.
Wrapping up this episode with the musical experiment “The Sound of a Colour”, this time composed by musician Andy Wiseman that creates the sound of Pink.
For more color inspiration follow @sarah__gottlieb and this episode's guest @stamuliab and the episode's musician @andywisemanmusic
This episode is sponsored by Montana Furniture.
SHOWNOTES
- Read more about the retail design that Stamuli for fashion brand Ganni over at Dezeen
- Want to buy something from the Tagadà collection, indulge in a shopping spree here
- If you’re not into colours and want to know more about the master of beige and neutrals tones, check out architect John Pawson and his minimalistic work
- For all synth nerds out there, here’s an introductory video to the Roland Juno-106
- Check out Stamuli’s work at their website
–
The Sound of Colour is produced by Sarah Gottlieb, with music by Matt Motte.
The host
Sarah Gottlieb is a Danish Colour Designer and Art Director. She runs her own studio, where she has specialised in Colour Design, Visual Concepts and Spatial Design. Sarah strives to move the boundaries of what colour can do and her goal is to encourage people to embrace more colourful worlds.
To hear more from me
For images and information from each episode go to the Podcast website
Sign up to my newsletter for monthly colour inspiration
Follow me on Instagram
Hi, my name is Sarah Godlieb and you are listening to the Sound of Color. I'm a designer and I work with colors in spatial design, product design and branding. In this podcast, you will meet a series of influential guests in the field of design and architecture, who will all share their personal stories and expert knowledge on and about colors. Together, we will delve into the magic of color and its significance in the world of design.
Emanuele Stamuli:There's actually a lot to study about colours. It's not completely subjective.
Sarah Gottlieb:The Sound of Color is brought to you in collaboration with Montana Furniture. I'm very excited about my podcast sponsor because Montana Furniture is a part of creating more playful spaces by bringing colors and high quality furniture into private homes, offices, universities, boardrooms, restaurants, lobbies and concert halls. So, as you can hear, they are just as big color nerds as me. Hi Immanuel and Alessandro. Hello. Hi Immanuel and Alessandro. Hello. The guests in this episode is founding partner Immanuel Stamuli and architect Alessandro Brussoni from the architect studio Stamuli.
Emanuele Stamuli:When you're a teenager and you have to express your emotion to your first girlfriend, you just go with black and white.
Sarah Gottlieb:You don't really know how to express yourself. Stamuli is an architect studio that designs high-end stores for international fashion brands, as well as residential projects and hip furniture. They are a collective of creatives who share a rationalistic approach to design combined with a passion for detail, sustainability, textures, geometry and, course, color. They have worked with fashion labels such as Agnes Studios, alexander Wang by Marlene Buer and Gani.
Sarah Gottlieb:I went to visit them at their Stockholm studio and met them right in a frantic time in between leaving for an exhibition at Design Miami and a birthday bash at the studio. But it was a very lovely visit and I definitely felt very welcomed in the studio. That felt a bit like a big, loud speaking, busy and loving Italian family. In this episode we speak about color as light in architectural spaces, how to approach colors for a project where clients has quite strict brand manuals and very specific brand colors, and how to still work with them and create innovative spaces. We also chat about how you, as an architect or designer, really have to investigate a color by playing around with shape, material, light, texture and context and, last but not least, how to work with colors without actually adding any color to your design.
Emanuele Stamuli:But I want to know where the interest and passion for colors originally comes from well, I guess that for us, since we often work with the geometries and forms which are quite clean, we, we love rationalism. Sometimes we question ourselves and we and we try to find the role of the decoration which we think is an emotional level to the project that we always want to give. We're always very careful about the emotion of a space, the feng shui of a volume, however you want to define it, but we're very much into the whole emotional part of what we do. And the color, it's a you know color doesn't really exist. It's like how, how, how light washes a a given surface with a given texture, and blah, blah, blah. It's very complicated. I'm not the right person to speak about it, but, but um, google it out there exactly how you perceive colors Exactly.
Emanuele Stamuli:But I guess that was our way right. We're not really in love with monochrome minimalism.
Alessandro Bruzzone:No, we're seeing colors, and so it is an important part of what we look at. Yeah, and definitely some emotional, exactly.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, I think also with some of the stuff that you say. When you say rational, you know you're into this very kind of feng shui, uh, form and like of a space, and I think to a lot of people maybe when they are afraid of color, it's because it's not rational and it's so hard to control how. What is your thoughts on that?
Alessandro Bruzzone:in the sense that we, the approach on our design and you know the layouts and spaces is often very rationalistic, so very straightforward and functional Very much, and the colors in this place could also be a functional element or just an emotional one.
Emanuele Stamuli:So when you enter a space where you have, like, some walls in different colors or objects in specific colors, you are able to put an accent that otherwise is very hard to reach, and I think it's the best way to play around with the lights in a space, yes, and I mean it's a, you know, in the tunnel bar, in the metro station, like reference that we always like, where the emergency exits are cladded with different colored tiles, where the vault in stone is and you see it, it pops up to you. So the color there is a functionality to color, to to color contrast and to add to what you say. That's also our interpretation of our taste. They say say taste is quite subjective. Might not completely agree.
Sarah Gottlieb:Oh, that's interesting.
Emanuele Stamuli:And there are shades of right and wrong, even when you pick up the colors. There is a lot of education behind the colors. I mean, I am far away to know all the rules, but there's actually a lot to study about colors. It's not completely subjective and and a lot of the work we do, I feel is, is also to explore that. It's like you know, when you cook, at a certain point you can play around with spices and you kind of get that that's the right quantity yeah and the color works a little bit like that.
Emanuele Stamuli:There is an edge of rosemary, you're supposed to use more than that. You're just going to feel only the rosemary. So you know this whole thing, because I understand that we're in a generation where we are overwhelmed by imagery. Everybody's a Pinterest expert, right Great, or an influencer on Instagram. However, the reality of fact is that the majority of the things that we think are stunning and beautiful, well, they're very, very well thought through. It's not a coincidence.
Alessandro Bruzzone:No, yeah, yeah and also probably the fact that we work a lot with retails and brands is also something that is important in the use of color and put it in a different perspective probably In what way.
Alessandro Bruzzone:In the way that when clients are brands, they have a strong identity and a message to send out.
Alessandro Bruzzone:So a specific color can send that message, while another one is a completely different. You know, take, throw on the same world. So there are some rules, as Monori was saying, that you have to follow sometimes. And, of course, playing around with it with materials and shapes and shadows, it's a way to get like a feeling from a red that can be different from a red placed in a, you know, in the shadow or in the light can be two different colors. Right, and in this sense I think it's also very important the relationship, of course, because you can pick like a color and say, oh yes, I love this color, but this is something that you can truly say, in the sense that he's always together with something else, with the context, and I think in this sense we are exploring so much in the work we do and is always something to learn about yeah how to use colors, and how to use maybe the same color we use in a project, but take a completely different expression because of the material we put in our base.
Alessandro Bruzzone:Reflections. So, that's, I think, is one of the most I think yeah, I agree with what you're saying.
Sarah Gottlieb:I think also a previous guest I had on the show, a danish textile designer and color designer called margaret olgo. She talks a lot about colors as friends. You know. You know, if you're having a dinner party, you want to. You don't want to have all your friends that gets really drunk, you want, but you also kind of want to have one of the friends that gets drunk and are too loud because otherwise it's going to be too boring. But then you also need kind of the boring color to kind of even things out a little bit.
Sarah Gottlieb:Very good point quite like that description.
Emanuele Stamuli:It sounds like you are working on on the same kind of level when you select colors yeah, and, and we often get to work with people that kind of know about textures and colors.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Emanuele Stamuli:Our clients are often very educative on creative theme and how to express themselves in an emotional way. Generally, if you are a chief designer of a collection, you kind of know how to speak through emotional or sensorial of know how to speak through emotional or sensorial so very often, and the reason why we have been able to deep dive into the usage of color is because sometimes the job that is given, appointed to us has one of the topic that we are asked to work on. It's all those how to utilize a color that to work on. It's all those how to utilize a color that, for instance, is is important in that collection of that particular season.
Emanuele Stamuli:You know some of our clients. They have some colors that are specifically something that needs to belong to the concept of their interior. So that's also why, for us, the color has become important. We obviously like to work a lot with stainless steel. Stainless steel is a reflective material and all of a sudden you can have one single color, washed or not washed by light, and the way it's reflected all around the store. It's 10, 15 different shades of it and all of a sudden.
Emanuele Stamuli:You haven't done really anything on the color, you just have worked on reflecting surfaces and how light hits them and you get. You know, how do you call that thing that? Thank you a kaleidoscope of items and and yeah, I think that's that's a lot of fun for us.
Sarah Gottlieb:It's interesting to hear how Emmanuel and Alessandro approaches the brief to use a specific color Something that could be considered as a restraint from the client as a way to play with that color, to investigate the color, to stretch it, to expand it, to transform it and to find new ways for the color to be seen and interpreted. So I'm excited to hear which color they will choose for my musical experiment, the Sound of a Color. So the experiment involves that you choose a color and I get the musician to compose the sound of the color that you choose.
Emanuele Stamuli:Very nice.
Sarah Gottlieb:So, Emanuel and Alessandro, what color should we hear the sound of?
Alessandro Bruzzone:Should we pick the pink? I would say so.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, which color are you picking?
Alessandro Bruzzone:The pink.
Sarah Gottlieb:And now you're saying the pink, let's talk about it. I'm assuming I'm looking at something behind you. I'm assuming it's that pink, or is it?
Emanuele Stamuli:It's even paler. Yeah, it's even paler.
Alessandro Bruzzone:I can take a sample actually.
Emanuele Stamuli:Yes, yeah.
Alessandro Bruzzone:It's a. I mean pink is a very interesting color, I think us it has been important. It has been a very important color, together with the yellow, actually yeah light yellow.
Sarah Gottlieb:Why is that?
Alessandro Bruzzone:it's hard to say. It's a very emotional connection and but pink, especially as it's not a primary color, has a lot of interpretation. When you ask somebody to pick a pink and maybe you ask five different people, no one will take like the same exact pink.
Emanuele Stamuli:It's not possible this pink is quite masculine and then the pink of the sample you you're gonna take, it's the stereotype of the feminine pink. Yeah, pink and yellow they can be brutal and it can be very, very sweet and gentle. And also they fit very well with concrete and stainless steel. To not be the underestimate, I mean, look at berlin. You walk around in this ugly, ugly not for me, a building of in concrete and they have the handrail in light yellow, the handrail in a little pink or the the framing. It's pitch of light color on concrete and and and steel.
Sarah Gottlieb:They work very well yeah, so it sounds like it's like the juxtaposition between between brutalism and like softness, like a human touch.
Alessandro Bruzzone:Generally speaking, contrast are always like a good way to to emphasize a message so, even if you want to emphasize the brutalist, concrete thing or the gentle aspect of a color, is always is the best things that are in contrast together.
Sarah Gottlieb:And I think that's quite a good point. Is that why color is important to you, that you are able to emphasize it?
Alessandro Bruzzone:Yeah, we get strength together. I mean materials we pick together with the color we pick. We're always put together for a reason and to emphasize each other sometimes, sometimes just to to make something disappear instead, depending on, of course, on what and where we place it. But yeah, this is also very important part, but, but I wanted to show you the yes get it.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, yeah, I like that. You say a masculine, uh, that it's a masculine pink, because I call that pink, vagina pink yes, and that's why it's masculine, exactly.
Emanuele Stamuli:Ok, true, no, but what I wanted to say, because you said, you know, is it the contrast that you're looking for? Sometimes I also, I also feel, you know, very distant, since we are Italian, I'm half Greek and we work in Scandinavia. Sometimes I also feel that our role is to break a little bit. In Sweden, we would say, the McLaren look of interior, where everything is coherent.
Sarah Gottlieb:That drives me crazy you kind of want to go in there playing coherence. Spill something like a big pot of paint in the middle or a bucket of something coherent. Yeah, trust me, you kind of want to go in there like playing cohereal exactly a bucket of something on the wall. Now it's good yeah, can you just always a bit locks? Yeah, I wanted you to describe the color for the.
Alessandro Bruzzone:This is actually a material is not probably a color, but if you look at this and it's just this. It's just a pink with some red and blue, and it's actually based on the composition of the color.
Sarah Gottlieb:So it's very nice to play around and see what makes this pink in the background, because in the end pink is always red, with a bit of blue and red, of course and whites, yeah, yeah, and I think also so, if, if we go with the thought that colors affect us in on all our senses, how does this color taste, this pink, this taste what?
Alessandro Bruzzone:do you say? I would say it tastes like a warm.
Emanuele Stamuli:I mean it's very inviting, like a hug, but also this tastes panna cotta with strawberry jam ah, yeah, you mean like as a food, sorry yeah, no, no, very comforting, sweet to me it would taste like panna cotta.
Sarah Gottlieb:Very good, yes, one of my favourites, definitely also like the super creaminess of it yeah, with a very, very varied, it's awesome yeah, I see, it definitely is a sweet thing so today we are apparently going to hear what a sweet Italian dessert sounds like a yummy pink. I wonder what the musician of this episode, andy Weisman, says about that. Hi, andy. Hey, in this episode I have invited the musician, andy Weissman to join me and my sound experiment.
Sarah Gottlieb:Andy Weissman is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist and producer currently based in Copenhagen. He is known for his versatile musicianship. His own experimental music showcase immersive soundscapes, crafting a dynamic sound that fuses ambient, idm, electro and pop elements. He has collaborated with a wide range of artists, both on stage and in the studio, across North America, europe and China. It has been great to talk music with Andy and I'm very happy that I got him to join in on the experiment to create the sound of a color. Thank you very much for wanting to be part of this musical experiment that I call the sound of a color. Thank you very much for wanting to be part of this musical experiment that I call the sound of a color.
Andy Wiseman:Thank you for having me A pleasure.
Sarah Gottlieb:Thank you. Well, in this episode, my guests are the founding partner, emmanuel Stamuli, and architect Alessandro Bressone from Stamuli. So when I asked them to pick a color that they wanted to hear the sound of, they picked drum roll pink, which was a bit surprising, but it's a color that they actually quite like to pair with more brutalist materials like concrete or stainless steel, because they really think it creates an interesting juxtaposition.
Andy Wiseman:So I'll just find a picture for you.
Sarah Gottlieb:I'm turning my computer Is this pink, beautiful, beautiful pink. I love it, and it's actually kind of like a recycled plastic material, so it's like a tabletop material. Yeah, what kind of words would you put in this pink?
Andy Wiseman:It's definitely got a candy quality to it. It looks juicy and tasty I don't know. I love pink. It's very safe and comforting. It's bright but it's not too intense, and I also really like the way it mixes with these kind of darker, more lifeless tones. It adds so much to it.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, you mean like with the rest of the materials. Yes, exactly yeah because here it's used as a tabletop to a stainless steel kitchen.
Andy Wiseman:Yes.
Sarah Gottlieb:Very hardcore.
Andy Wiseman:And with the other colors on top of it, it also kind of looks like a birthday cake.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, true, the material has kind of like small dots of red and blue in it. Yeah, so now you've seen the color that I would like you to interpret musically, how do you think you'll do that?
Andy Wiseman:I'm not sure, but I'm excited about it, as pink is probably my favorite color. Is it Definitely one of them? Yes, amazing, and maybe not this exact shade, but I like it all. So, yeah, I don't know. I think I'll go for something. I'm going to think of the things I already said to you like this safety feeling. It's very gentle and organic, but I like very much how it pops over something darker.
Sarah Gottlieb:So I might, I might kind of create something more bland and lifeless or dark and then put something on top that's very different the way this pink is being used in their design so, like you're actually going to try to interpret this, the pink sound also in, like in how they create it, like when they put it up against something and other materials, like the juxtaposition of that exactly, yeah, I think I want to showcase the, the power.
Andy Wiseman:Something can have to really change how this foundation can feel, look in their case or or sound in the, in the musical sense, how it can change when you add something very different on top of it oh, wow, that's interesting and what could you say?
Sarah Gottlieb:is there like a specific instrument that you kind of have a focus on, or are you like multi-instrumentalist?
Andy Wiseman:I'm definitely a multi-instrumentalist kind of master, of none, but I think not. No, definitely not. But I think in this case I really like using electronic music production and synthesizers. So where I am at right now in musical life is I think I'll definitely reach for a synthesizer, maybe create like a drone or something to create a foundation. What's a drone? Like a very long sustaining note.
Sarah Gottlieb:Ah, okay.
Andy Wiseman:Very simple, but it can create a vibe. But I'm also kind of mainly a drummer actually, so being my favorite color, maybe I got to throw in my favorite instrument somehow.
Sarah Gottlieb:True, you have to combine those two favorites.
Andy Wiseman:Yes, it'll be a puzzle.
Sarah Gottlieb:It'll be a puzzle, okay, okay, and I want to ask you, before I leave you to this experiment how do you initially work in your creative process when you have to create a piece of music?
Andy Wiseman:Oh, it really varies. I'm not someone who has a really good process that I turn to every time. It's different for everything. It's a bit crazy. But I think I can break it up into like there will be like an initial creative, playful phase where I want to just experiment and like try a bunch of stuff out and improvise and not focus too much on any small details or what it's going to be in the end, just create a bunch of assets, puzzle pieces to play with. And then I want to separate that from like a crafting phase where I sit down, without expecting to have a lot of fun and get creative in that way, and look at it all and kind of like trim it down, groom it and find some little you know, hopefully gems or golden nuggets that I can use as new foundations to put something together well, I think I will leave you to it.
Sarah Gottlieb:Uh, it sounds very good, and then I'll look forward to talk to you again and hear your version of this pink.
Andy Wiseman:Thank you so much. I look forward to playing around with it.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, great, while we let Andy enjoy the process of creating the sound of pink like a sweet Italian panna cotta, I will get back to Emmanuel and Alessandro at the Stamuli studio. We will talk about another recurring element in the sound of color. We're going to talk about a project that Stamuli has created where colors play a very important role, and Emmanuel and Alessandro have chosen a retail design project that they have done for the Danish fashion brand Ganni.
Emanuele Stamuli:So, first of all, ganni was one of the first big clients we got and at the time we had a tight relationship with the owners, dita and Nicolai, and they wanted to create a store which would recall a Scandinavian domestic environment. So our take on this was to work with a theatrical floating wall to define a room. So what's a room? Right? Generally it's four walls, a ceiling and a floor. So we kind of fragmented all those elements and tried to strip it as much as possible and to have, indeed, those floating walls and those cuts in the wall which would allow you to see what was happening next.
Emanuele Stamuli:And so, talking about forms and shapes, quite straight, clean lights, clean lines. I hate the word minimalistic, but it was rationalistic, let's say, in in how it was lay lay out and the idea is that you know they were launching this wall hashtag gunny girls. So there was a whole juvenile and remarkable feminine approach to everything. Maybe the word girly, it's a bit too strong, but it has something that needed to be that yeah, the essence of the Ghani girl kind of yes and so this was before a lot of other Danish brand went into this pastel color.
Emanuele Stamuli:This was really one of the first and we decided to go with pastel color Light pink, light blue and light yellow, so simple, clashing. Then, after we started to go into shades of pink, so dark, light, very light, but at the beginning it was clashing colors wooden floor and tiles and, I have to say, the showroom, which is one of my favorite, one of the first project you worked on, it was not really a store, it was more a lifestyle thing they were supposed to do also our thing. But that is in Bremenholm, on the ground floor facing Nikolai Platz behind the store and that is a beautiful way of using colors without necessarily this theatrical floating wall.
Alessandro Bruzzone:Yeah, that was a very specific space that was supposed to be a showroom and a kitchen. It's an open space divided in two areas. There is a showroom and the kitchen area, and we focus on the kitchen area to play with tiles, so it's a completely tiled floor and walls, so to have this effect of a sort of a super studio, kind of look like an infinite wall In a beige tone, so very toned down down nice, with grouting in light blue, contrasting grouting, so that the check, you know, the square, the shape pop out very clearly. And that's when we started, like playing around with colors, and playing around with colors as a material to build actually the objects.
Alessandro Bruzzone:That was fun because in this setup, you know, with tiles everywhere, it's very easy to see. You know volumes and objects as drawings kind of. In the sense that when you have like a block, a color block in that space, you feel is I mean, and you look from abroad it looks like geometrical drawings kind of.
Sarah Gottlieb:Because of all the lines of the ground and the tiles.
Alessandro Bruzzone:Yeah, it's like yeah paper you know like where you sketch objects and yeah, that was also one of the moment in which we started thinking about the tagada collection. So there is like a connection in between ghani and, yeah, the concept for ghani, and then the, the, the objects. We thought it was like representative of what was our journey at the time.
Sarah Gottlieb:Takata, as Emanuele and Alessandro mentioned, was their big breakthrough. As a studio, I would describe them as almost cubist furniture Chairs, tables, sofas, mirrors in a mix of strong colored surfaces which stand in great contrast to each other. The chair, perhaps the most famous in the series, is, in its form, quite simple Four legs, a seat and a back. But the juxtaposition of the colored surfaces is what catches the eye. The bold color choices and the contrast between the colors creates a new spatial experience which is completely unique, and I can't help but think how they actually transfer this way of using color in other projects, for example with a brand that already has a very set color scale.
Alessandro Bruzzone:I mean, maybe a big difference from other studios is that we always kind of prioritize the needs of the clients and the brands, because they're very strong in the identity we carry and it's not just, you know, our inputs, but of course we have our inputs so it is like, I mean, the outcome is always different, right?
Alessandro Bruzzone:So the first thing we ask ourselves is do we need a color here or not? Should it be like warm, cold? And we try it out. You know, we try it out because it's always in relationship with the aesthetic and the architecture. It's not like you know, we don't start from the color alone. It's part of the, it's also a kind of, it's part of a palette we use. So, yeah, it's together with other materials. So when you decide to use I don't know wood like a warm material or a cold one, a brutal one or maybe a gentle one, with the colors is the same and you mix it and they play together, maybe nicely, maybe not, want to clash sometimes or maybe not. And, yeah, it depends on what you want to tell and how you want to drive, let's say the journey, let's say in a store or in a and when you say drive a journey, you mean like how you lead the customers around in the shop yeah, I mean at least as we imagine doing it because every time is different, but yeah, it's uh yeah
Alessandro Bruzzone:it's. It's definitely the flow inside a store and the retail experience as uh, as it's called and we call it is. It's a thing and it's a way of also understanding the journey that a customer and our clients will do in the space. So it's part of, yeah, you put yourself in the shoes of this customer approaching a store, so you start from the facade, you get in what kind of feelings you want to experience and where you want to focus and, yeah, go and discover.
Alessandro Bruzzone:You know this journey let's say so the colors is a big part in the sense that you can. It's like lights, right, it's very, it's very associated. Yeah, we can associate it with lights a lot.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, it was interesting. You started, you kind of got in on this in the beginning again that you reference colors as light.
Alessandro Bruzzone:Yeah, it is. I mean, from a scientific point of view, it's probably the best explanation of what colors are.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, yeah it is, I would say so.
Alessandro Bruzzone:But of course everyone perceives it in a different way. But they also carry some kind of qualities that are objective sometimes and definitely they will help. I mean, it's like in a graphic design, you know, when you have like a capital letter or you start, you see it first. Yeah, I mean, if something is bigger, you see it first. Right, it's louder.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Alessandro Bruzzone:With colors, it's the same. Maybe you have like a ton down space. Yeah, then you have an accent, even if it's not as big. You're gonna immediately notice that, because maybe you have like a red shelving and wow, I mean, the ice is always. This is immediately attracted from that because you want to. You know, the person visiting baby, yeah, the customer or whatever like the user of a space or the, the person visiting the, the customer or whatever like the user of the space or the ex.
Alessandro Bruzzone:I can say no, the customers, I would say because the people who come into the shop yeah, exactly whoever enter the space to, to, to focus on that force and then reading the rest, yeah so it's almost like a little uh leading.
Sarah Gottlieb:You kind of want to like drag the To create a little journey.
Alessandro Bruzzone:I mean, that's what you do also to follow a narrative in the designing of the space.
Sarah Gottlieb:I quite like the description and the idea and I think for people maybe who are designers, maybe not architects but the idea that you're describing, that you're using color as light in an architectural sense, to create a space where you can lead people into a space, or to the side or around with making these small spots of lights or color, especially in interiors, because when you can work on architectures properly, then you can play with windows, openings, arcades or whatever you want to have lights entering the space. Actually, but if you have a, defined space.
Alessandro Bruzzone:That is usually a big space inside a building and you can't really play with natural light so much.
Sarah Gottlieb:No, you can't put a window in a shopping center or like a big shop Exactly. You can't really change the facade, or yeah, or very rarely, let's say so.
Alessandro Bruzzone:colors is definitely like a way to yeah, to use lights in the space.
Sarah Gottlieb:It is really eye opening for me to hear how an architect doesn't have the option to work with light in a shop because all other windows and doors are often blinded, and how Stamuli actually control the whole spatial shop experience by using colors and colorful elements as spots of light to guide the customers around in the space. It's really something that Stamuli is very good at, but to me there's a big difference between projects like the Takata chair and a Gani store, and I would very much like to hear how they experience the difference between these two creative processes.
Emanuele Stamuli:Well, nowadays we get called a lot, even by companies, because we are considered good with colors. So now we are much more free than before with colors. So now we are much more free than before. However, as we said before, we often have clear guidelines depending on the typology of company I would say high fashion they have more clear idea on which are the chromatics that you have to include. You know, less high level or more mass products. I would say when we do things just by ourselves, we tend to work a lot with the colors we started the interview on. I think that pink, light pink and light yellow it's like personal preferences In my last few years of my career has been two very important colors.
Alessandro Bruzzone:Yeah.
Emanuele Stamuli:Yes.
Alessandro Bruzzone:And we actually explored also the absence of colors in this last year.
Emanuele Stamuli:Yeah, it's true.
Alessandro Bruzzone:So because we tried to detach somehow from you know, let's try without any color, and we did.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, and how did that feel?
Emanuele Stamuli:Weird, we're working on it. We're working on it, okay, um, maybe like absence of color, is more like very subtle and maybe color that is not, it's reflected or is. Uh, yeah, but it's not explicit.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, it's not explicit.
Emanuele Stamuli:Yeah, yeah, not, like you know I hear this, Like you know, like
Sarah Gottlieb:the lemon is like explicit exactly color where with the stuff you do now. Yeah, we're gonna go on.
Alessandro Bruzzone:It's like a bunch more ideas or some sort of matters. Yeah, so that you take the colors from this grounding, or maybe black and white.
Emanuele Stamuli:Yeah, but also you know what if you and you, and when, and if you do product, you need to take this decision. Because it's a product, because you know it's an object and you need to give it. But if you do a space, yeah.
Emanuele Stamuli:You know, a space is whatever it is. A house is in the nature. If it's a, if it's a room, you have people inside. If it's a bathroom, you have the reflection from the window, I don't know whatever. But then if you play with the things that reflect or that filters the reality, such as certain kind of glasses, like that glass, for example, on my shield then all of a sudden you have a reinterpretation of the reality. You don't have to add any color, they just do the game.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, I think that's a quite interesting, also a good spot to maybe uh wrap up some of this like that was a. You know that the fact that you're like saying, like when you do a product, you really have to think about the color because it's an it, it exists in itself, whereas when you do a space like the material, that can reflect everything that goes on in the space and all the colors that comes into the space.
Emanuele Stamuli:So you might not need to be so explicit in the color in a spatial sense. No, absolutely. I mean we will never be John Paulson's kind of style. That's not us absolutely. But I understand that kind of architecture, you know, because it's an architecture that takes a lot from the surrounding and in a way in our world, we also try sometimes to be the filter between the nature and the human eye.
Emanuele Stamuli:Sometimes you don't need to add anything, you just need to be filtered in the right way with the right angle. But it's very difficult to do that. I feel also that we're aging in our profession and we're getting more sophisticated.
Sarah Gottlieb:As the attentive listener has probably noticed, there's a larger birthday party lined up out in the rest of the office space. But before I can let go of Emmanuel and Alessandro, I have one last question for them, because Emmanuel said that they have become more sophisticated in their work over time. As I often meet this preconceived idea that if something is very colorful then it's not sophisticated, I'm wondering what they think about that no, I I don't think so.
Emanuele Stamuli:I don't know what you think.
Alessandro Bruzzone:I think it's a very easy way to put it. It's very easy to to put it in a more elevated and sophisticated like aura kind of because the minimalism is associated with that kind of, but I think it's also.
Alessandro Bruzzone:I mean, it's not easy. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's also it's way harder to place colors in a minimalistic environment. So that's the goal, probably. Of course, pop colors and clashing colors is very explicit and can be perceived as loud, but also also it is like a loud voice, right, so nobody can say it's not, but there are many ways and many nuances to consider a thing and sophisticated.
Emanuele Stamuli:There's also a negative exception if you look at the etymology of the word.
Emanuele Stamuli:So when I say that we're aging, it's just that and we're getting more sophisticated. It's just that sometimes you want to beat around the bush, you don't want to say it straight. You know, when you're a teenager and you have to express your emotion to your first girlfriend, you just go with black and white. You don't really know how to express yourself. So it's all either great or super bad. And then you start to age and you know that maybe you should filter a little the things you said. What?
Sarah Gottlieb:Oh, so nobody told me.
Emanuele Stamuli:But you know, especially at work and I think that professionally it happens a bit the same Sometimes to reach a certain message you want to take a deviation that makes it feel a little bit more poetic that there is a longer journey to reach that point. I don't know, Maybe it's just I don't know if it's even correct, but sometimes I feel it's a bit like that. It's still an emotional journey and you want that to last as long as possible.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, that's a nice answer. Thank you very much.
Emanuele Stamuli:We managed to do it. We managed to do it exactly. Thank you for your patience.
Sarah Gottlieb:Ah, well, thank you for your time. So Thank you for your patience. Well, thank you for your time. So I think this is going to be good. We're going to see how it goes with the sound of pink. That's going to be the finishing note.
Emanuele Stamuli:My God, I'm so curious about it. Yeah me too.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, so now it's time for cake and bubbles for Emmanuel and Alessandro. Thank you to them for this colorful conversation. But luckily, dear listener, you and I also have a dessert to finish off the panna cotta with strawberry. Let's hear what our musician, andy Weissman, has gotten out of the light pink color. Hi, andy, I'm back.
Andy Wiseman:Hi, good to be back.
Sarah Gottlieb:Thanks for having me. Well, you have been working on interpreting the color pink as a piece of music and I'm very excited to hear the musical take that you've come up with. Do you want to take us through your process?
Andy Wiseman:Sure, like I think I mentioned before, I wanted to create some sort of foundation just to work off. Sometimes it's easier to just work if you have something, whether you delete it in the end or not, so I used a synthesizer there, an old Roland Juno 106.
Sarah Gottlieb:I like that specific like information for the listeners.
Andy Wiseman:Yeah, you'll find your synth nerds I've met some of them.
Sarah Gottlieb:They're great.
Andy Wiseman:Oh, awesome, of course they all are, but yeah, so I just I made like a very simple kind of dark sounding drone. That kind of sound can sound dark or happy or light, depending on what is added on top of it. So I just made a really kind of chill, dark but not too crazy low, kind of dusty and airy drone. Note that I liked the feeling of in that moment and I looped it and I said I'm going to play drums now. So I had that in my ears and I just kind of improvised to a click track like a metronome on the drums for a while and some ideas kind of came together like yes, this is the groove that's happening right now, for whatever reason. So I just recorded myself for probably like 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and then I listened to that and found some fun moments that I liked and created like a couple of loops that could be cool beats to build something else on top of, or that I thought felt cool, on top of the drone.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Andy Wiseman:And then I processed the heck out of those drums and made them sound entirely different. But yeah, I did a lot of processing and experimenting and, just like you know, completely reconfiguring this loop and sound until something just felt like, ah, that's the inspiration I have in the moment. And then I started adding some other musical elements on top of it, different textures, different colors, kind of like the picture you showed me, where there's this pink, there's this airy stuff on top of this, metallic, darker surfaces, adding brightness and life to the space. But then there's also the other colors, kind of.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, the small sprinkles, yeah, the sprinkles, the dots in the plastic material, yeah, exactly.
Andy Wiseman:So I I've I've got a couple different instruments in the track that are kind of creating different textures, different layers to it that, uh, I don't know, I guess provide the sprinkles that sounds good.
Sarah Gottlieb:I like that well. Um, I'm thinking actually that we should just ask the listeners to put their headphones on, turn up the volume and get comfortable, and then they should close their eyes out there, because here comes the sound of pink.
Andy Wiseman:Thank you. Thank you very much for listening.
Sarah Gottlieb:As always, I really, really appreciate it. If you like what you heard, please share it with someone that you think will like it too, even it being your grandma, your friend, your mom, your brother, your sister. Just send them a little note to listen to this podcast, or you can also go and give the podcast a review. I know that it really helps others to find it as well. Something about those algorithms. As always, it means a lot to me. If you help me spread the word and if you want to see more about the work of Stamuli, check out my website, sarahgodliebdk, under the podcast section. This episode was sponsored by Montana Furniture.