The Sound of Colour

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen - How dyslexia transformed his relationship with colour forever

• Sarah Gottlieb • Season 2 • Episode 8

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Have you ever thought about how dyslexia can shape the way someone sees and works with colour?

Join us as we explore the world of colour with designer Nicholai Wiig-Hansen, co-founder of Raawii, whose unique way of perceiving colour has influenced his approach to design in fascinating ways.

In his work, Nicholai explores the interplay between shape and colour, creating timeless designs that range from ceramics and furniture to everyday objects, his work includes collaborations with brands like Normann Copenhagen, Lightyears, IKEA and of course Raawii. 

Designer Nicholai Wiig-Hansen grew up surrounded by art, shaping his deep and instinctive connection to colour. In this episode, he shares how his unique way of seeing the world—shaped by what he calls his “super dyslexia”—makes him perceive colour and form before words.

In this episode we dive into his creative process, from testing 20-30 colour variations for each product to designing with light in mind. Nicholai explains why nature is the ultimate colour inspiration, how colours create emotional journeys, and why good design considers how shades shift throughout the day.

And most importantly, he reminds us that colour is free—it’s all around us. We just need to practice seeing it.

Wrapping up this episode with the musical experiment “The Sound of a Colour”, this time composed by musician Sofie Søe, the artist behind ALOO, that creates the sound of the Raawii bowls.

Nicholai is one of the warmest and most engaging people I’ve met—you can’t help but be drawn in by his energy. Tune in for a fascinating conversation about perception, creativity, and the power of colour. Happy listening!

For more color inspiration follow @sarah__gottlieb and this episode's guest @nicholaiwiig @raawii.dk and the episode's musician @aloo_music

This episode is sponsored by Flügger and supported by The Danish Arts Foundation.

SHOWNOTES
- Want to buy your own ‘Strøm’ bowl to make music with? Find them here
- Read more about the artist Vilhelm Lundstrøm and his paintings that the ‘Strøm’ collection was inspired by here
- Check out Nicholai Wiig-Hansen’s work at his website
- Check out Raawii and their collection here 

–
The Sound of Colour is produced by Sarah Gottlieb, with music by Matt Motte.

The host
Sarah Gottlieb is a Copenhagen-based designer and art director specialising in colour and spatial design. Known for transforming environments through innovative use of colour, she is dedicated to creating public spaces that inspire connection and a deeper appreciation for design.

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For images and information from each episode go to the Podcast website

Sarah Gottlieb:

Hi, you're listening to the Sound of Color, a podcast exploring how color shapes design, architecture and the way we experience the world. I'm Sarah Gottlieb, your host designer, color expert and all-around color enthusiast. In each episode, I invite influential guests from the field of design and architecture to share their insights, experiences and creative processes. Together, we'll dive into the many ways color influences our work, emotions and everyday lives. So, whether you're a designer, an architect or simply just someone who loves color, this podcast is for you.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

I would recommend that people try to train looking at colors. You're just getting better at it if you practice.

Sarah Gottlieb:

You know how some people swear by a specific coffee brand or refuse to use anything but a certain kind of pan. Well, for me, it's paint, and not just any paint. I want to say a big thank you to the sponsor of this episode, my go-to paint brand, Flügger. They've been in the game since 1783, so safe to say they know a thing or two about craftsmanship, quality and, most importantly, color. So if you love color and care about quality, check out Flykker, because life's too short for bad paint. This episode is also supported by the Danish Arts Foundation. Helping bring more color, creativity and great conversations to life. Now back to the episode. Hi, Nicholai, hello. The guest in this episode is designer Nicholai Wiig-Hansen.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

All designers are amateurs comparing to nature, because you cannot compete with nature.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Ni cholai Wiig-Hansen is a Danish designer and the founder of Raawii. His design approach is rooted in strong shapes, bold colors and a deep understanding of form and proportion, with a portfolio spanning furniture, lighting and objects. His work includes collaborations with brands like Norman Copenhagen, Lightyears and Ikea, but he is perhaps best known for the Strøm series for Raawii - Sculptural ceramics inspired by painter Vilhelm Lundstrøm's modernist still lives. His designs are driven by both function and aesthetics, always with a clear sense of materiality and colour. In this episode, we talk about how he approach to colour in product design, how colours shape trends and influence the way we experience objects. And, of course, he'll also choose a color that will be translated into sound by the episode's musician. So let's dive into a conversation about color, form and inspiration with Nicholai Wiig- Hansen.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

I mean, I come from an art factory. My father was a quite famous Danish artist, yeah, and so I brought up with color and I think also because I'm like when people say they're dyslectic, but I'm like, I'm like super dyslectic. If I see a building, I don't see that it says whatever.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

I just see colors and I see graphics and that was, that was an early age. That, like I saw like another pattern in things. I mean, most people learn to read when they're between five and eight and then it becomes a big part of the light. And if you don't have that kind of letters in your mind and they only become graphic and colors, I think you just look different.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah, that's quite I can imagine then you look at the world in a totally different way.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Yeah, so I think that was why colors was important. And also I really like nature and I think what nature can do is like constantly change. The sky is never the same. So if you look to the sky now and you look in two seconds, it will never come back, and that's what like colors can do to you. That it's a part of an emotional um journey. When you see a color, so when you remember happy and sad moments, you say like, oh I, that was really sad, that was a sunny day or that was I'm really happy and that was a great day. But it's, it's interesting with color does like if you were depressed in the summer, when it's bright, people will think that's not really serious yeah but if you say in the gray day I'm really depressed, then people will go how understand you and I'm not.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

I like rain, I like when. I like changing. I'm more autumn person than a summer person and I like changing. I'm more of an autumn person than a summer person and I like that more dramatic. But I think that is kind of the color has an influence on you, that you say you are depressed or you are happy or these kind of moments. And. I'm just brought up with it.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Nicholai's father was the highly acclaimed painter and sculptor Svend Wiig-Hansen, and his mother, Leila Sallyman, was a ceramicist. So color played a huge role in Nicholai's childhood and upbringing. Colours are something he's always been deeply engaged with and explored in his own way.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

First of all, we look at color differently Our eyes, you know. You can be a fantastic painter and be a little colorblind. So it's very hard to define A chair. You can say I sit well or not that good in this chair, but a color, there's kind of nothing right or wrong. You cannot say, oh, for me it's a little too pink or whatever, and it's very undefinable if you will say that, and I think that's why it's easier just to take a color.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

But I do my work with other companies also. I always said let's just twist the color. And that was kind of the part with when we started Bo, my business partner and me when we started Barbie. I would say, like colors, we need to take color series. So the series that jog and the first series we made strong was I went to the factories and tested colors and tested colors. So for me a yellow, I think I did, like I don't know, between 20 and 30 different trials of colors.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Where I put and that's maybe also the dyslexic thing is that when people work with colors they say like two grams of that or three grams of that or two grams of that or two and a half. They don't do 2.69 and 6.85 of one thing and mix the colors together. And I don't care about that, I just want the right color. So that's what I try to do and test and test because, again, my love for nature and what happening in nature with color is like if you decide to do a product, first of all you need to do the best you can with the product.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

A part of that is also color. Actually, somebody have earned money, bought new things and bring it home and hopefully it would be a part of the family. You can say it sounds maybe a little pretentious or something like, but it is. You do a product and it comes home and then it's there and you will have mixed emotions when you have a product of mine or somebody else at home. And then I think just color is so important and also because we in Scandinavia we have more light in the summer and if you live in another country, darker, so comparing to what kind of lighting you have, what kind of weather it has, it's constantly change. And I use a lot of time of working with this color because I think I think our customers deserve that. I use a lot of time on it.

Sarah Gottlieb:

For Nicholai, a colour is clearly not just a colour. There can be a lot of thoughts behind it the time, the material, the feeling, the customer, etc. I love the seriousness, but to an outsider it might seem a little abstract and intangible.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Yeah, I mean it is because there's no right or wrong in a way, and that's why, as a creative, I just have to say this is right and it's right for me and I reflect out of my own kind of. I just choose the colors I kind of like and think I don't look at trends or anything else, I just say like, okay, we have that and and it's also logistic. I mean, we've been like kind of stupid logistically in a way that we have, I think, 11 kind of different blue and normally a company will just it's, it's. It's a part of our kind of dna, would you say, that we, we create the right blue for the right that product. We don't take a standard and put the same blue and logistic. It could be stupid in a way, but it's kind of interesting that we have different kinds of blues. I think you should just find a color and dare do it, and that's the thing.

Sarah Gottlieb:

So it's about bravery and you have to remember about bravery.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

You should take them serious. But the way you use colors you should not take serious. Because if you take a sweater on, that's a little jumper on, that's like a little too pink or a little too blue or green. I mean nobody dies of it, it's not like what do you?

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

mean, oh, my hair, don't call it my hair, but you know, like and that's kind of interesting also when you see the. We always think about the old generation like conservative, but like for a long time the only people you saw use colors was the people from the 60s and the 70s, and that's interesting. If you see this wonderful lady come with like a scarf that's like bright pink, a hat that's orange and moon boots that's another color and you go like okay, and she's conservative, you know she's actually the one that wears color. And then you see us in the design world, just like I'm having gray gray t-shirt on.

Sarah Gottlieb:

You know it's just like okay, maybe you're not that yeah, but I always have this thing like the iconic, uh, like architect, uh or designer, um, dress up is basically like black, maybe jeans, uh, white gray and like very straight. No, not too many frilly details, not too many colors.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Yeah, but I tend to be the same and I think it's to be kind of natural like open. Yeah, so you're like the neutral, neutral kind of. I'm the neutral person in the room.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I don't really know if Nicholai Wiig- Hansen is a neutral person, but he is certainly full of creative, quirky and fun ideas, so I'm really looking forward to hearing what color he chooses for my experiment the sound of a color. So, Nicholai, what color should we hear the sound of?

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Okay, but you know I'm creative, yes, so I will do the challenge opposite and I will go down here. And because we have the Strøm series standing here on the table. And it's different kind of colors, but I'm going to do like this is like the bowl of Strom and it has different sounds. So you know the colors now. So let's see what the musicians get out of which colors the sound is.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I think that's a good idea. I want to just describe to the listeners that we're looking at the balls. And the balls are actually the two sizes, but they're the same size but in different colors. And the balls are actually the two sizes, but they're the same size but in different colors. But so if you just try and do a row with the same size a ball, but just the, this is the large bowl in stone.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

This is the middle size. This is the small size, perfect.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Hello, perfect Hello. That's great, I think that's so. This is just the musician actually has to interpret the sound of the colour instead of actually having a colour to work from.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Exactly. Sorry for that. I always change the rules, but that's.

Sarah Gottlieb:

So Nicholai completely turned it upside down. But how does that translate into sound? Let's hear what our musician has to say about it. Hi Sophie, Hi Sarah. In this episode, I've invited musician and producer Sofie Søe to join me in my sound experiment. Sofie is the artist behind Aloo, an experimental electro-pop project blending rich synthesizers, drum machines and cinematic strings with her powerful yet sensitive vocals. Since her debut EP Før and her follow-up Berlin, Aloo has gained international attention with singles like Paint you in Red and Don't Wanna Wait, making waves in Germany, Italy and the UK. Thank you very much for wanting to be part of this experiment to create the sound of a color. Thank you very much for wanting to be part of this musical experiment the sound of a color thank you so much for asking well, um, in this episode, my guest is the danish designer, nicolai v hansen.

Sarah Gottlieb:

He's one of the co-founders of Raawii, so when I asked him to pick a color that he wanted to hear the sound of, he went very creative and played the sound of the balls of the ceramic collection Strom that he made for Raawii. Wow, so he almost took your job. Yeah, okay, but I think I'll just take this and I'll show you a little video of where I recorded when he played Cool.

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

Wow, this is so cool.

Sarah Gottlieb:

It's beautiful sounds yeah this is so cool, it's beautiful sounds. Yeah, so, as you can see in this video, like nicola is kind of holding the microphone into into the balls and like hitting them, but all the balls that he's actually hitting are exactly the same ball, the same size, but they have a different color glazing, but the kind of the glazing is kind of the same but the color is different. And it was just. I think he was just so kind of like mesmerized or like amazed with this whole thing that it actually was different sounds. Yeah, it's these sounds of color that I would like you to interpret musically and thinking of the series of colors that created them. I hope you're up for it.

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

I'm down.

Sarah Gottlieb:

And the hearts question how do you think?

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

you'll do it. Yeah, good question. Wow, oh, I can think of a lot of ways to do it.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Actually, it's very interesting that they're changing sound, I'm like because it must be the same paint or like same type I think it must be something with, like I'm guessing without being like a ceramist and knowing all about glazing because that's a kind of an alchemy and I know that a lot of people like ceramics is, like, really difficult to work with yeah because of that, and I think it must be something with like the components of the dye, or like the pigment, or something which has a different density compared to which color it has.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah, it must be something like this, yeah, yeah well, it's.

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

Um, I think I will use some of the original sounds that he just created from these balls for sure, because, yeah, when you asked me like if I wanted to, I didn't expect I would get such a an input to work with, like sound input. So, yeah, this I definitely get some ideas like having some sound material. I can send it through some processing and bring new sounds to it, like new colors, new textures. So I'm going to experiment a little bit with some different plugins.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I think and if you look at these colors of these balls that Nicolai played, look at these colors of these balls that the Nicolai played like, what kind of immediate kind of emotional or sensory experience do you get from these colors?

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

I think of, like I feel warmth and calm. There's something to these colors that is very like soothing, like they're very, they're all very warm. I think these are the immediate things I'm thinking of.

Sarah Gottlieb:

And I just want to ask when you work with creating sound, the process do you have any thoughts on how you're going to actually create the sound of these balls?

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

yeah, I want to find something warm, some depth and some calm there's. They don't scream at me, these colors, so I don't want to make something like crazy. Um, yeah, they're a little bit like I feel. Yeah, yeah, seriously, it's calm I'm thinking of with these colors.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah, I think that's quite interesting and I'm very excited to hear the sound that you'll create. Yeah, so I will look forward to talk to you again and hear your version of the Strøm Bowls, while today's musician works with the sounds of the Raawii bowls. I'll get back to discussing colours with Nicholai, and he's definitely willing to embrace fresh concepts and new ideas on how to describe the impact of colours.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Now we talk about colors but we can also talk about texture, because wood I mean, if you put a metal thing and spray paint it a high glossy brown and you take a walnut brown, it's both brownish colors but you have a quality to the wood that you don't have to the metal. Because people would say, like I can live with that color because it reminds me of nature. So I think it's, it could be nature that you think, like all designers as amateurs, comparing to nature because you cannot compete with nature so you can choose, like I just have natural, like simple color, because my color fix I get when I go out and see a sundown. Or a place that's really dear to me is Scotland. You know Scotland is the most fantastic place. If you like colors, go to Scotland in the autumn, you know that is, you can go one meter. And the constantly changing of water also because the hills compared to the locks and you know the whole kind of change, interacting, mirror and that is fantastic.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Okay, that's a. I think I should go to Scotland more.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

No, no, but it's really fantastic because it has that kind of everything. It is also because of sea level high level and the Atlantic Ocean Also because you have like a lot of ocean. If you go to the West Coast, the light just looks different.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Whenever Nicholai discusses colours, his enthusiasm shines through, making it hard not to catch his excitement. I definitely feel like heading to Scotland at this very moment to experience the hues of the natural world. However, what steps can you take to immerse yourself in the vibrant world of colors?

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

I would recommend that people try to train looking at colors, because it's a kind of nice experience to kind of define why you like a color and combine it with your mood and things like that. And I think in your home you have to kind of be able to record memories from places where you can. That's why you buy, you have like antiques or have things from your family that can maybe be ugly but you have a good memory with it. And I think that's the thing with colors. If you have a home, you should put elements of good emotions, good experience with a certain color in your home and then you can kind of refresh that memory.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Sometimes. I mean, like everything, you have to practice. And it's like being creative. People forget that you're just getting better at it if you practice. It's just not something you just have. You know everybody has a talent of some kind, but if you don't practice it it's just like, ok, fine, you have a talent, but so what you know you have to practice, like everything. And and for people to practice like looking in color and and kind of enjoying color, I think just you should try it, just like really just sit and look at the sky or gray, or go to the lakes or or look in the concrete wall or whatever and just like kind of just feel what do I get out of that?

Sarah Gottlieb:

I think that's a good advice and a good starting point if you have a hard time understanding color. I had a previous guest, also danish, margaret, yeah, and she also talks about this that you have to like have time to actually design with colors. You need time because you need to like let the color resonate with you to kind of make up your mind what to do with it yeah, exactly and it's.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

It's a shame that you don't practice that and it's not like, oh, they're creative. It's a bit snobbish because everybody understands if they just minimum time understands color, because it's all around us all the time, constantly and it's free. Just look to the sky.

Sarah Gottlieb:

True, it's free. I like that it's free.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

I mean, it's really.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Colors are free. It's all over.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

I mean, if it was a restaurant and it was free, people will go there and enjoy it. You know they will use it all the time Go.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Absolutely. There are enough colors in the world for everyone. And now we'll learn about a project where nikolai shared his colors with thousands of homes, specifically the strom collection that he created for ravi the strom collection was made for exhibition wilhelm lundstrom.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

They had a big exhibition in exhibition Vilhelm Lundström. They had a big exhibition in Brands Glädsorbeck in Odense and they asked me if I wanted to, actually, because I always talked about Lundström and Kubism and that time, you know, originally there was like Kandinsky and Picasso, this kind of still living the way they worked with the colors. It's the area around 1910. So I did a thermos for Norman Copenhagen called Geo. So they asked me so you want to have that because some of your products, because I like that kind of area in art in that time and we were actually sitting in another office, bo, my business partner and me, and we have talked about doing a brand and this was in November, late November, and the exhibition was in April.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

So for a long time I have had that series of products, for maybe 15, 20 years. I actually showed it to some design company. Nobody was interested in that. So I just like had the call, went into the office and say Bo, is it now we make this brand we talked about and he said yeah, okay, let's go. And he's kind of loose and we just started. I called around Portugal and travel and we did some wooden things and and then we started the brand with six items. That was how it came, and of course, wow, I love that with colors.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

So what happened was that? Um, I went to portugal and that was the first thing I go like we're not going to use standard, we're going to use colors. We are going to test and test and test because that is what there is in paintings and also the way you work with shadows, and Lundström has this kind of that area of that. They kind of worked with that. If you look at the paintings, you could never make the things in 3D because they're working with the light, that they have shadows on both sides and lights on both sides.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

So I thought about how do you create that in the glaze? And then I started working with putting a little black in, sometimes in the glaze, so the shadow hits earlier. So, for example, if you have all white in your home and then you have one product when the light goes down or the sun goes down, and then, like maybe five minutes before the other product, it catches a shadow, then yeah, I'm weird, I know, but then it creates this kind of dusk feeling. You, you, you I think we all I don't know we all but I remember when I was in the countryside, when I was young, I walked home for a friend out in the country and then you had this bush somewhere standing and then suddenly, where it became blue hour, it suddenly changed into be a monster. So you can kind of hype yourself with that bush you've been seeing for a long time.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

But that little tree, that like, suddenly it started to kind of go into night mood yeah and I've always been fascinated by that kind of blue hour and and then, for example that's another advice I can give to people try not to put on the light so early. People have the tendency to, as soon as it gets a little the light so early, people have the tendency to, as soon as it gets a little dark, they put on the light in the living room, just sit and let it get dark. Nothing happens. But the things that happen is that the room changes. There's a certain time where everything is just kind of magical.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Nicholai seems like he can be inspired by a lot of different things, but what is his design process like? When I work, with design.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

I don't sketch a lot, no Like on paper, but I sketch in my head. So what I do, it can be a little mental sometimes because I kind of repeat the product in my head again and again, and again and I put different layers on. So I put production, packaging, colors and the product and the end consumer in the same way when I think of a product. So I always like I have everything in my head at the same time and then I kind of repeat it and then I filter it. When I do a product it sounds yeah, that's the way I work.

Sarah Gottlieb:

That's a crazy process. I think it's quite interesting. It would be really amazing if I could see the inside of your head. I hope you wouldn't, but anyway, no, no, no.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

So I do that. So colors is it's a part of that filtering concept the way I work. So I kind of see a lot of times my I start with production and when I think about a product I get inspired by something I want to do or some we you know it's not me that only designs for Harvey. You know we've made this chair we're sitting in, that made of our own Pollock it's a.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

French designer. We had an idea how we wanted to work with it, on how we've also wanted to work with colors that a product like the chair can easily be changed so you can have kind of a boring chair black and black like this isn't on neutral, not boring, but neutral or you can have like different kind of elements that has color. You are sitting in a pink chair.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

I chose the pink, yeah so first of all I see, like okay, can it be made? This is what we're going to do, like the storm collection. Then again, without sketching, I think like okay, this is a product that stands on in somebody's home, how is the light reflecting in the home? And then I kind of work at at you know you have different boxes because you you constantly see things in your daily life you put into boxes yeah and they say this is this box, we put it in, and then you just activate the different boxes and combine them when you're doing a product.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

So I don't. Maybe it's a little complicated, but this is how my brain works so I can use like different effects. You can say so. When we did this project, I just put everything also because I designed it for a long time and then I'm activating the different boxes and putting them together.

Sarah Gottlieb:

How would you describe the color range? How many is there? Six? How big is the color range?

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

We started with six and now we did. I think we have like 14 different colors.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah, but how does that, you know, with the six you started with like, because they're not. It's not like light gray, light brown, no, no.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

The six colors. How I started with the six colors was that. I think that's again how I work. I kind of see how people are going to use it at home. Yeah.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

And if you can help being an interior designer for people, so if you can do combinations that you can really easily put together, yeah, then it helps people. Then it helps people like do interior design. So it's if you say like, oh, I have the, I have that vase and I put it with this ball and then it looks really nice together because the colors kind of you can mix the colors and it. It would be a meta. You know, you can have like orange and the yellow and pink. That's one thing, but you can also have the white, the green and the blue, and then it gets another emotion, another way of type, you can say, of the way you look at the colors.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

So I kind of the way I work then I do all the combinations and kind of mix all the combinations. All these things fit well together. So if I take the yellow and put together with the blue, it has one color. If I take the pink and the green, it has another color. But all of the colors kind of fit together.

Sarah Gottlieb:

It's fascinating to hear about Nicholai's not-so-straightforward design process, and I'd love to dive deeper into how he chooses his colors. For example, when he's working on an object that traditionally has a specific color, how much does that influence his creative decisions?

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

It's fun to see that a business that has growth is like sex toys and then suddenly there's like certain colors you use in that, there's like a certain color palette you use in sex toys and I find it really interesting that like okay, so it's like that and that and that color.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I really I think it's so amazing that you brought this up, because I was once invited to like a press event for a cosmetic brand that released their own kind of vibrator and it came in like I think, two or three colors and it was all kind of like soft pink, douche lilac, kind of dark lilac, very like you know, it's very you're not supposed to say feminine colors, but I was quite interested in that. Okay, so, lust and passion and orgasm is like these, really kind of a little bit like non-offensive colors, but I was really puzzled about the color of sex and the color of like orgasm and the color of it's like red, pink.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

You know you would not take a like I don't know, I'm not like, I'm not a champion, but it's just interesting that certain areas that's kind of the colors in this area and I never understood why who said that? That was the colors? So if I did that I would probably do some other colors. And then people say like, oh, you can't use this color. And it's like car colors, they're very standard and some companies take car companies you know the old alfa romeo colors. The white was like beautiful, they had a little red in them and it has that kind of changing in light. And but I I just said it because I find it there's coming like a standard in sex toys colors. Now that's kind of the standard. I find like weird in a way no, but way no these colors no.

Sarah Gottlieb:

But I think also, I think maybe sometimes you know as a like a product, as a piece of product design or an object of design, a sex toy is a very like specific and we all kind of maybe have a very specific relation to like the idea of a sex toy. So I think, like sometimes putting something to the point of actually discussing objects having a color it was just fun because I was really also very puzzled with like aha, so this is apparently like the modern day sex toy color.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Yeah, it's interesting, but there's some certain areas and I don't know. But it's just like certain areas and I don't know. But it's just like, instead of just thinking one dimensional, think not three dimensional, but like a thousand dimensional, and that's home, that's bringing home, that's storage, there's production, there's all these kind of things. There's surface, there's textile, there's all these kind of things, how a color can work and where it is. I mean, yeah, again yeah, so again.

Sarah Gottlieb:

So when you're filtering through your boxes, you're like, you know, maybe you are thinking could think in like bright hues or like muted hues or whatever, but you're like, then you're going through like, well, this is the object and but this is the production and this is the material and this is where I'm imagining that it's placed in the home and and then all the boxes that it goes through, like. That will also be a part of deciding the color. Yeah.

Sarah Gottlieb:

When talking to Nikolaj, you quickly realize that colors aren't just colors. There's something truly unique, something he even compares to music.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Music creates something in you that you can't explain. You know there's just something, even it can be the most banal music, but there's just something in music that touches you in a way you can't kind of explain. And I think the colors have the same thing because you combine it with your mood. So music can be. I use music in a way that sometimes I need to listen to something because I'm in a special mood and you can get your up and you can get. You know it's like before you go out you hear something, or if you're feeling like blue or something, you want to hear this kind of music. And I think for me colors can do the same thing. Use it in I don't want to use the word spiritual, but nearly this kind of relaxing way of looking at a color.

Sarah Gottlieb:

But I think also, maybe, if what you're saying, you could also say that you use color to create an emotional atmosphere. Yes, either to enhance an emotional atmosphere, yes, either to enhance something or to change something.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Yeah, you can say that. Yeah, you can say like, if, for example, that's something I would find a really interesting job is working serious with colors where people have the need for colors, and that could be hospitals, schools, uh, different spaces where I think I think you we will get, I people are working with it, but we will find how important it is for mental health, probably in the future, that colors can can do some something for you yeah, I, I agree.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I think we should just let it out there and say to people go ahead and everybody work towards that, that the colors should be much more in hospitals and like all these public institutions that you know we all have access to and that can all help us have a mentally better life.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Yeah, I think it's not because it should just be like fun to have colours, but I think it can really help you in areas.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Life is not just fun. Of course we need fun in our life, but we also need the opposite. So basically, we just need color. The very last question I always ask is where do you find personal inspiration? Like I asked everybody that I've had on the show to either bring something or show something.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

That yeah just answer, I'm going around inspiration, and then I'm gonna do like I'm going around and then I'm gonna do like and that was my answer.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I think okay. So then I think that's a very good place to stop all around, all around.

Nicholai Wiig-Hansen:

Yeah, I think that's the.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I imagine, go to Scotland and goes, yeah, all around and got Scotland, yeah. But, nikolai, I want to say thank you welcome.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I thought I really enjoyed the conversation and I hope the listeners will too, and now I can't say let's all listen to the color of the sound of a specific color, but we will let the musician interpret your answer to the question, and that's going to be interesting to hear as well. Yeah, thank you. Welcome. Hi, sophie, I'm back. Hi, sarah, good to see you. You have worked on interpreting the series of colors of the Strombols. Yes, and I'm excited to hear the musical take that you've come up with.

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

Yes, so I was going for this uh, calm, warm sound we were talking about. I remember, yeah, and I started out taking the. You sent me a sound file with the different bowls and and I took this and then I sent it through the plugin called pole stretch which.

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

What a good name for a plug-in, yeah called pole stretch, which what a good name for a plugin. Yeah, it's very cool. It's right now one of my favorite plugins, for sure. It's like taking the sound and then it's stretching it out and then you can scroll in different like edit, different parameters. So, yeah, I sent the whole like all. So, yeah, I sent all the bowl sounds through this plugin and got some really long bowl sounds, but with a lot of overtones that came out actually, and it's funny because the bowl kind of it was very how do you say? Like the overtones were very clear and very spiky. Yeah, so it wasn't as calm and warm as I hoped it would be. Then I came up with a new idea yeah, you sent me a picture of all these colors of the balls, yeah, and I sent them in to something called Encyclopedia Encyclopedia.

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

Okay, yeah and here I could get all the information from each of the colors, and I found all their corresponding frequent like wavelengths. Yeah, so like the reflect the light, reflection of the colors, exactly yeah and then I took this range of the like, I translated basically the wavelength into frequencies, because sound has wavelengths as well.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yeah, which is also why I came up with this experiment actually is because you know, like light has wave, is that that's in waves and that's how you see color and sound has waves. So I'm like it's a perfect match.

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

I thought, yeah, so that's amazing so, um, I took the relations between the color, like the wavelengths, yeah, and translated them over to the audible spectrum so that they have the same relations.

Sarah Gottlieb:

But now they are audible ah, so the colors, you made the colors audibles. Yeah, you know in your own system, but that's what you did.

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

Yeah, actually, yeah, oh wow I love that so they all have like a corresponding frequency that we can hear when we do it like this, that I didn't edit that so you know how tones. If you play a piano, you can just be like like play all kinds of tones, yeah, and it can sound horrible, yeah.

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

So there was this chance, yeah, but I thought, let's go with it. And then I assigned a different sound to each color and then I chose to let these sounds come in in an order that looked like the picture you had sent me yeah, so almost like the way that nico and I set up the bowls next to each other.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Yes, Wow.

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

And then all the sounds I chose. I was like they are warm, they are beautiful, like they represent the colors well for me, and then I pressed play.

Sarah Gottlieb:

And then were you then happy?

Sofie Søe (aka Aloo):

not quite, but closer, close, very close. Okay, I was like holy, this is great.

Sarah Gottlieb:

I think that's good, and do you have any last things you wanna tell us before we listen to the piece of music? Take? A deep breath that's good, okay, everybody out there, take a deep breath. That's good, okay, everybody out there, take a deep breath. Put your headphones on, and here comes the sound of the Ravi balls. Thank you.

Sarah Gottlieb:

Thank you so much for listening. I truly appreciate it. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who might love it too, and if you know a friend who's just as obsessed with color as you are, send it their way. If you'd like to see more about Nicholai Wiig_ Hansen's work, visit my website, www. sarahgottlieb. dk, under the podcast section. This episode was supported and sponsored by Flugger and the Danish Arts Foundation. Thanks again for listening.

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Sarah Gottlieb

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