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
Fredrik Paulsen – Colours Beyond Bullshit
What happens when you strip away the superficial bullshit in design?
In this episode of The Sound of Colour, I meet designer Fredrik Paulsen—known for his punk approach to design and an unapologetic love of bold, clashing colours. Rooted in subcultures, music, and the DIY ethos, Fredrik’s design language is raw and emotional. For him, design is something social—something that invites participation, conversation, and community.
His work has been exhibited internationally, he’s the founder of the furniture brand JOY Objects, and most recently, he’s stepped into the spotlight as the new host of Grand Designs on Swedish television.
In this episode, we talk about designing with emotion rather than perfection, how 90s rave culture shaped his palette, and why creating spaces for people to meet might just be the most important kind of design.
This is an episode about colour as attitude. About breaking away from good taste. And about finding freedom in the unexpected.
For more color inspiration follow @sarah__gottlieb and this episode's guest @fredrikpaulsen and the podcast musician @aloo_music
This episode is sponsored by Flügger and is supported by The Danish Arts Foundation.
SHOWNOTES
- Want to see Fredrik action painting the Nobel Price Pavilion? See it here
- Have a look into Martin Margiela’s all white shop
- Want to get a hold of one of Fredrik’s Chair one chairs? Get them here
- Check out Fredrik Paulsen's work at his website
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The Sound of Colour is produced and hosted 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
Hi, my name is Sarah Gottlieb 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.
Fredrik Paulsen:For me, it's really, really important to somehow create work that you can really feel in a way.
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, flykka. 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 Flykka, 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.
Fredrik Paulsen:No, but I'm allergic to bullshit.
Sarah Gottlieb:The guest in this episode is designer Frederik Paulsen.
Fredrik Paulsen:Everything I do. It's an expression of my despise, in a way, of the superficial bullshit that surrounds design.
Sarah Gottlieb:Fredrik Poulsen is a Stockholm-based designer known for his fearless use of color and boundary-pushing approach to furniture and spatial design. His signature wood coloring technique was discovered by accident when party garlands left vivid stains on wet tables after a party, a moment that sparked his ongoing exploration of color as a material in its own right. Whether he is creating one-off pieces or large-scale commissions, like a 10 meter wide psychedelic pavilion roof for the Nobel Prize ceremony, frederick approaches color with the same precision as any physical material. Deeply influenced by subcultures, music and the DIY ethos, frederick's practice reflects a belief in design as something social, something that invites participation, conversation and community. In this episode, we talk about designing with emotion rather than perfection, how 90s rave culture shaped his color palette, and why creating spaces for people to meet might just be the most important kind of design. So let's dive into a conversation about culture, experimentation and creative freedom with Fredrik Paulsen.
Fredrik Paulsen:It's not like I've always been interested in colors and working with colors, because when I started my design path, when I studied at my bachelor, it was in the early 2000s. My bachelor it was like in the early 2000s and minimalism was like the shit and anti-design was a big thing, especially in fashion. Like Margiela was like a like a big big thing.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, hot shit, yes and even in graphic design, everything was like very standard, like Times New Rome and a very like default, and at that time I was always painting everything I made white, just like in the Margiela shops very inspired by that you're like I'm into fashion.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, no, but it was also like I don't know.
Fredrik Paulsen:For me it was a little bit I had some sort of I was a little bit ashamed, because for me I was very interested in design in a deep, deep way and I was really when you say interested in a deep way, what do you mean? Like, when you talk about design, first thing you think about is like very superficial commercial stuff that you find in there in the interior design shops and that was, you know. That was the opposite of what attracted me. I was really interested in like using design as a you know.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, like form follows function.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yes, that and also like, really, you know, for me it was not about creating commercial things that you could decorate your house with. It was about something else that was not defined yet in my head. So the things I made was very minimalistic, like very archetypal type of forms, and I wanted to, you know, mask all the materiality. So I was always like painting everything white, because I didn't want to be the guy who specified this and this fancy material.
Fredrik Paulsen:I was always hiding everything in white color, and it was not until RCA actually at in London like some of them, my teachers there asked me like you know what's what? What can you contribute with? What is what's your? What do you have to bring to the table that no one else can bring to the table? I was like are you stupid? This is. I've been trying to find the essence here.
Fredrik Paulsen:You know, it's not about that, but that somehow put a seed in my in my brain a little bit, because I was like mmm, I came from a cabinet making background. Yes, I was very confident in creating beautiful, well-made things in fancy woods and everything like that. And you know, when I started to study design, I wanted to take a step away from that. But, at the RCA, those two worlds in a way came together nicely.
Sarah Gottlieb:So I guess what they were looking for. They were looking for your personality. Yes, yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, so I was starting to coming back to materials and the beauty of materials and material combinations and I think that it was my biggest interest in a way, combining woods and really like nerding in and choosing one type of wood and adding a color to that and then another material, but for me it's it's um, it's the combination of different things that creates the an interesting whole in a way. So I started to challenge myself in making things. But at that same same time I was also very interested in, or I became interested in, like creating this I don't know psychedelic surface onto woods, because when I started to work more again with materials and not hiding them, I was like one material I always came back to was pine.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:You know pine is in vogue now. Like people like pine again, but at that time pine is in vogue now Like people like pine again, but at that time pine was like a no-go, like no one used pine.
Sarah Gottlieb:No.
Fredrik Paulsen:I mean for me it was also nice because that is like the most wood type of woods.
Sarah Gottlieb:It's almost like a cartoon.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, yeah yeah, you know that's greens it looks like this, that pattern in the pine, like we're so used to seeing it, but for me it was also like a psychedelic pattern, especially with knots and all the lines floating around the knots for me it was psychedelic, so I wanted to add psychedelic colors like a layer of floating colors on top of that to somehow emphasize the psychedelicness yes, so I started to experiment a lot with like dyes and blending and mixing and creating my own dyes to somehow paint the wood in that way.
Fredrik Paulsen:So I spent so much time at the RCA like experimenting with different solutions yeah water-based, oil-based, oil-based, alcoholic-based mixing, all types of dyes. Because I had this vision in my head, how I wanted it to look.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:But I could never reach it and my plan was like, as a degree work, to somehow present this work with the pine and that was colored. But my tutors at one point they were like no, we don don't see any results, so you have to do something else because we don't see any progress here. I was not feeling very well at that time. I was really angry.
Fredrik Paulsen:What happened then? No, but I moved on. I dropped it, like, but I couldn't get it out of my head and one evening I was at a party and it was very late and it was decorated with, like this colorful paper garlands hanging in the ceiling at the end of the night when we're, like you know, cleaning and you know, moving out from the warehouse. The garlands had fallen down to the tabletops with beer.
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:Yeah, it was all liquid on the tabletops and the garlands had fallen down onto the tabletops and the tables.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, it was all liquid on the tabletops and the garlands had dropped their pigments. So it was all this somehow floating colorful stains on the tabletops that we couldn't wipe off. I think I don't know. I put a lot of, you know, pride in that to somehow be be receptive and be in the moment to somehow realizing that, oh, holy shit, this is it. In Swedish we say I go over the lake to get water, yeah. Or like. It means like to dig where is sand, basically yeah. So I was realizing like wow, why am I trying all these complicated ways to mixing stains?
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah. This is the way, fredrik's designs were pretty different from what was trending back then, and he actually kind of felt embarrassed about his way of working. Almost secretly, he kept playing around with these colorful garlands on wood, and over the years he refined the technique, but he stayed true to the original expression, and today it's a big part of his success. It's not exactly a simple process, though. Each piece is totally unique, so why does he keep coming back to this?
Fredrik Paulsen:I'm getting bored, I mean when I'm making things for me. I couldn't stand it. I could never have been a cabinetmaker, I could never spend so much time creating the same thing over and over again. I mean I'm too impatient for that. I need some action sport qualities in the work I do and for me it needs to be fun for me to do it. So if I was just like repeating everything all the time, I would probably have designed a machine doing it or like having someone else do it for me. But I'm not interested in that. I like having like a craft that I can come back to every now and then, because, like, of course, staining wood, like this action painting is not everything I do all the time, but I love to have it.
Sarah Gottlieb:It used to be somehow the core of of my practice but now it's a little more like a part of it, yeah something I visit every now and then.
Fredrik Paulsen:I mean, I've been evolving it a little bit since I moved studio, like I have a little bit different type of setup so I can't really do exactly what I have. What I did in the old studios I had to find, had to find different ways of doing it, and now I'm, you know, experimenting with with the same type of pigments but applying it in different ways, creating completely different results yeah because, like when I applied those pigments to the pine, for me it was really important that they reflected light.
Fredrik Paulsen:I was really afraid of creating something that somehow reminded a little bit of something that you could find in nature.
Sarah Gottlieb:You wanted to be like super hype.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, it needed to be really, really, really like reflecting light in a way, almost like a rainbow or like having this prism effect, because I was more like, I was very inspired by northern lights and rainbows and these somehow light effects in a way, and not nature at all. So when, when all the different pigments met, maybe it became a little bit dense and maybe a little bit dark green or like this type of use that are that you somehow can find in nature, yeah, then it somehow died a little bit for me, like the, the result ah so I was always like trying to create this mix of colors that somehow creates this tension and vibrating that somehow reminds a little bit about light yeah, and the rainbow
Sarah Gottlieb:yeah, and this is kind of maybe it's also because, like with the rainbow, you it's present and you see it, and then, on the other hand, it's super untouchable and not tangible and you can't like hold it and grab it, and so you and you can define the color, but then it feels like it's changing all the time yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:So even that is very psychedelic, because then you're doubting, like is it existing or is it not, or is it just in my head? Yeah, is it only me seeing this and I think those things? Is I, I'm interested in that?
Sarah Gottlieb:yeah, because then we're like something new is happening in the brain but I think, also like for me, that's one of the reasons why I'm obsessed with colors is that it's, you know, in theory, colors don't exist in the physical world. It only exists in your head. Because it exists as the light hits the material and either is then reflected or absorbed and then goes into your eye and then in the eye, in the receptors of the eye, the color is made in your brain. And when I think about that, I'm like that it kind of doesn't make sense. And then it does make sense, and that's why I'm like color is such such a weird material, or is it a material?
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, no, I see it as a material definitely.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:Or I use it as a material.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:Because, for me, in everything I make, I consider the color Just as I would, you know, consider any material.
Sarah Gottlieb:I just love talking about color with Frederik. Consider any material. I just love talking about color with Frederik. His curiosity and the way he thinks about the effect color has on us is really inspiring. So I'm really looking forward to hearing which color he picked for my experiment. The Sound of a Color. So what color have you chosen to hear?
Fredrik Paulsen:Like a very, very, very deep, dark purple Oof, almost like it's black. Do you know? Like a black light, like the actual bulb, the black light bulb.
Sarah Gottlieb:Like the you know in the photographic kind of studio. Like not, or like Like the you know in the photographic kind of studio.
Fredrik Paulsen:Like not or like no, like the one that when you turn it on, like when you're at a rave and there's black lights and your teeth looks like they're.
Sarah Gottlieb:White, yes, or like fluorescent.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, that type of purple, like when you shut off that the color that it has.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, yeah, that really, really, it's almost like aubergine yeah, but like black aubergine, yes but it's purple, but it's aubergine, yeah but it's purple, but it's aubergine, ooh, why that color?
Fredrik Paulsen:because it's so interesting, because I'm fascinated by, by the black light bulb, like because it looks black, like the glass bulb looks black, like the glass bulb looks black and it can create light like every other things can light your teeth, can become a lamp almost, and I don't know how that works and I'm just like, really, you're like your mind, your mind boggled by the kind of crossover, yes, like the blackness to the whiteness yeah, yeah, yeah, and also it's a beautiful color.
Fredrik Paulsen:I like purple. In a way, it's magic yeah, yeah, it is magic.
Sarah Gottlieb:Purple is like prince. Yes, magic yep like magicians purple oh yeah, there's something about it purple is also like a color that people sometimes is kind of offended or disgusted by. Yeah right.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, and that's so fascinating. I love those. I mean, it's very rarely like you come across people that have so strong opinions about those type of things, but purple yeah, it kind of, there's a, there's a divider there. Yeah, it's like fruit fruit in food yeah do you?
Sarah Gottlieb:want pineapple on your pizza, yes, no, yeah, purple in your house no, yeah, that's the pineapple on the pizza color yeah, it is the pineapple, that is it okay, but actually, with the pizza in mind, if we think about colors as something that can touch us on other senses, what taste? What does it taste?
Fredrik Paulsen:like this dark black purple for me it's like very, very, very deep, dense umami type of flavor, but not the like sharp notes. It's very soft and very rounded, some very type of bass, like a broth, like an intense, deep, deep yeah, like.
Sarah Gottlieb:yeah, I think it like a Porky beefy, I don't know meaty bone broth type of base, yeah, like the kind of core of the cooking. Yeah, yeah, that's a nice description. Yeah, I can relate to that thinking of the bulb and the color oh delicious, yeah, okay. Well, that's going to be fun then, um, to hear what the musician comes up with for that color deep black, dark purple and rich, fleshy umami flavor. There's definitely a lot to unpack here. I'm excited to see how Sophie will translate that into sound and music.
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:Hi Sophie, hi Sarah.
Sarah Gottlieb:For this season of the Sound of Color, I'm thrilled to be collaborating with musician and producer Sofie Sø, the artist behind the experimental electro-pop project ALU, blending synthesizers, drum machines and cinematic strings. With her powerful yet sensitive vocals, alu has gained international attention for her emotional depth and sonic detail. With a background in mathematics, computer science, sound engineering and music, sophie brings a uniquely analytical and intuitive approach to sound. She'll be creating a musical interpretation of each guest's chosen color throughout season two, and I can't wait for you to hear what color sounds like. Now let's get back to the episode. So we are at it again. I'm so excited to create our next musical experiment, the Sound of a Color Me too.
Sarah Gottlieb:And in this episode my guest is designer and artist Frederik Paulsen, and he's quite known for his like playful, colorful furniture and also his rebellious take on design conventions. So when I asked him to pick a color for the experiment, he showed me this black bulb and he was really fascinated by this light bulb, but especially like the fact that it's almost like symbolic in the contrast between black and white, like darkness and light. Like you know, he was like it's a bit mind-boggling that this is a very dark object because of the color of the light bulb, but it can actually make other objects become like light sources. So that's the color that he kind of um the color comes from this light bulb. So the color that he chose is deep, dark black, purple. Nice, so Nice. So what is your initial reaction to this color?
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:Love it Like no. The contrast thing is always interesting for me to work with as a composer, and this dark color the dark, purple, almost black, and the neon, immediately brings me to Berlin nightclubs. Neon immediately brings me to Berlin nightclubs, like the dark clubs where it's like only lit up by some lighting and the music that's in those clubs are like, yeah, very dark, and I definitely want to make something that corresponds to to this and to also to these, the contrast of lighting up things like that I can see how there can be some play in this.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, that would be really fun. Also because I think that for Frederik was like one of the things he was like okay, this dark purple. He was like I like purple, and it was like it kind of divides people, like purple is a color that kind of divides people into lovers and haters, and he said he said like, oh well, purple is a color that kind of divides people into lovers and haters. And he said he said like, oh well, purple is a color that divides people. It's a bit like fruit on food. You know, do you like pineapple pizza or not? Nice? So maybe first of all, do you like purple? Are you a purple lover or purple hater?
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:It's a very good question. It's funny. It's almost like orange right. It's like I have this double feeling about it because this light bulb, love it, love that color, the very, very darkness, um. But there's something to the more reddish, uh, purple, and more bright, not like super bright, but some in between kind of color. Not really into it. No, especially if I was gonna wear it or something, I would feel like no, this is really not my color. Um, yeah, I don't know what it is. It's just kind of ugly to me yeah, but that's quite interesting.
Sarah Gottlieb:I think it's like, um, I can totally that's quite when you go, I think also sometimes now talking about color in like endless amounts of podcasts and like with this musical experiment with you, I'm also a bit like I want to. You know, of course our language is kind of quite limited. You know, as you said, when we say purple, of course this light bulb which is like dark, deep black purple, very kind of beautiful and like mysterious. But then of course you can also say purple and think of, like I don't know, some weird kids toys in like a quite bright purple color or you can have these almost like soft lilacs which I think some people love and some people are like that is that's the most hideous pastel puke color.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's quite interesting like to kind of um ponder a bit about, like the spectrum of purple yeah, and which, which purple we actually talk about?
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:because this very, very dark purple also, like I looked at the color spectrum and it's almost not visible, it's like by the very, very end of this spectrum.
Sarah Gottlieb:It's like you know the visible to the eye.
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:Basically, yeah, it's almost in the uv range, like the very low part of the like wavelength um, but also it's very has very little saturation. It's very um, like there's almost no color in it yeah it's so dark like there's almost no light, you can say yeah yeah, that's so okay.
Sarah Gottlieb:so, like before I leave you, I just want to how do you think you'll create the sound of this deep, dark, black purple?
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:Yeah, so because of the contrast and also I also want to go with my immediate intuition about this. When we get this dark color and we're like it's almost black and I just hear bass in my head, I just want to be in the clubs with the very long wavelengths and I I like to be in the clubs with the very but there is seriously like a Bergheim, for example.
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:You know there's like some, the way it's built. You really have space for all this space to just be very long wavelengths, standing waves and stuff like so yeah, it's so interesting like. That's what I think, but then I also want this like thing to break it like this short wavelengths. I want it to be um, mysterious like the color, but also harsh as fuck.
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:Sorry, but it's like you can swear in this podcast You're allowed Because the short wavelengths they can hit you really hard when it's bass and these high frequencies. It's a funny sound picture to make, I think. So definitely want to play with that and and make some little surprises and stuff like the pineapple on the pizza, like the pineapple unexpected, but nice exactly, okay.
Sarah Gottlieb:Well, on that note, I think I'm gonna say bye for now, and then I'm going to look forward to coming back and hearing what you came up with. Yeah, I love that. Deep black, dark purple has got Sophie's thoughts going, and while she dives deeper into that, let's hear about one of Frederik Paulsen's bigger projects A pavilion he created for the Nobel Prize ceremony back in 2021.
Fredrik Paulsen:It was during COVID. Every year they have the banquet where they have the prize ceremony here in Stockholm. But during COVID obviously they couldn't do that, so they focused on the week they called it Nobel Week, when they actually make the announcements and they call, phone everyone, all the lauderettes up. So during that week they had an idea to to have a pavilion in a in a very central spot in stockholm and the sagels toy, and they asked me to design the pavilion, which was great, and at the time when I got the question they didn't really know how to program it or what to use it for, but they knew they wanted a pavilion. So I was a little bit also involved in you know.
Sarah Gottlieb:What it's going to be. Yeah, yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:But we landed on a cinema. They wanted to show documentaries about Peace Prize winners.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:And it was going to be open for 24 hours, 24-7,. What do you?
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:call it All the time. It was always open.
Fredrik Paulsen:And also it was COVID, so it's like we had so many different things to consider about. You know, I really wanted to have air flowing and you know how people could enter that space.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, so you don't get infected. Yeah, yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:And I also wanted to make a really smart design so you didn't need a big ramp for if you were in a wheelchair to access. And so I was thinking about all this type of accessibility questions and also myself, like how would I like in this type of pavilions, like in the very central, am I interested in those things? How should they look? For me it's really important to somehow see what's going on in the inside, like what am I agreeing to here when I enter the space. So for me it was very important to do something that you could really easily read, and I think we had five different screens inside this pavilion, so I wanted to expose all these screens and somehow show it. So I did this big one one it was like a round structure that was translucent that you can see.
Fredrik Paulsen:See all the screens from that 360 degrees yeah, and also this plaza is below street level yeah so it's surrounded by the streets.
Sarah Gottlieb:I'd say you have like roads up on like bridges or whatever.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, which means, like, all passersby are looking down on the plaza, so you will see a lot of the roof, and also around this plaza it's a lot of really tall buildings. Yeah, so the rooftop was something that you know you would. You know very. What do you say? Presence in the design? Yeah, and this plaza has this somehow iconic graphic pattern. It's this black and white triangular pattern.
Sarah Gottlieb:Ah yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:So I wanted to do something that somehow was in, you know, in contrast to this Pattern, yeah, this graphic black and white pattern. So obviously on the roof of this building I was. It was a big circle, it's a. I think it's 10 meter in diameter that's huge so one day I was you. You know, before the opening, like reveal of this pavilion, I was on the roof painting it in the same way as I paint you know furniture, yeah, yeah.
Sarah Gottlieb:So basically what you did with the roof, that you made the roof into one huge One huge, I don't know messy, colorful batik type of thing yes, I did this kind of tie-dye wood coloring method on on the entire roof yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:So I was just pouring water and you know soaking it water and then you know adding the pigments to it. So, yeah, no it no. It was really fun. I wish everyone can I don't know access image or film clips of that, because it was.
Sarah Gottlieb:We'll do a link.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, please do, because it was fun and I think it looked great. I'm very happy with it because it really combined functionality and this I don't know weird splashy colors to it for me in a nice way.
Sarah Gottlieb:I can totally see why Frederik loved the process. Standing there on a giant circular canvas surrounded by a sea of beautiful colors, blending them in and out of each other, the result was stunning A huge explosion of color that truly carries Frederik Poulsen's design DNA.
Fredrik Paulsen:I mean it needs to be something that says something about I don't know me.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:Or I think we need to be more personal. Yeah, I think we need to be more personal. Yeah, and yeah, I mean, people are a little bit afraid to reveal their personality in design.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:Because it needs to sell in a lot of quantities and you know all need to relate to things.
Sarah Gottlieb:I think that's a very interesting point within design and also both in designers designing but also people consuming design or surrounding themselves. Is this whole thing about being afraid of showing what you just said, being afraid of showing personality? Why is that important to you?
Fredrik Paulsen:no, it's important to me because the world doesn't need any more and no middle way things like we don't need. I mean we don't need things, no more more things like we need. You know, culture, and then you know like we cannot make, make billions of new shares and dump them into the world. We don't need it. I mean buy used shares, repurpose stuff. So all the new stuff that gets out there needs to somehow have a relevance, really needs to say something new, to say something else, and we can talk to a smaller group of people. You don't need to, you know, talk to everyone here no, no so we need to be more specific.
Fredrik Paulsen:So I don't know to create stuff that people, the ones who, um, who are getting interested, that they, you know, get those things and keep, keep them forever in a interested, that they, you know, get those things and keep, keep them forever, in a way. Yeah, they, they to create the bond.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, that you personally resonate with.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, yeah, because otherwise it's about trends and then you buy something because you feel like it and it was affordable or whatever, but I also feel like trends is like you buy something because someone else says that that's the thing that you should buy. It's so easy to just like getting distracted and just getting something.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:But if you get something that truly means something to you, then it's less likely that you will, you know, get tired of it two years time and getting something else, like when you really need to do things that are with people for longer times.
Sarah Gottlieb:Absolutely. We need objects where designers and producers have really put in the effort, spent time carefully developing both form and color, and that's exactly what Frederik did with one of his other projects, chair 1, a piece that also went through quite a journey when it came to color.
Fredrik Paulsen:The first chair that we presented like the prototype had no colors at all. I mean, it was a raw aluminum and transparent acrylic, so it didn't have any colors to it at all.
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:It was like naked in a way, it was like the essence of a chair.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, but that was presented in a gallery and it was limited. But then when I designed the chair it was like so many different colors on it, color combinations and what do you mean there were so many different colors?
Fredrik Paulsen:Like sometimes one product. It has one color to it or it has some different colors to it. But when I designed this collection it was the whole collection with all different colors was as important. So like you can take one color or like one color away out from the collection and it can stand on their own. But the whole idea of the whole collection was all different color combinations of each share that created like a whole and that whole was in a way the product. So I like that whole multic hole was in a way the product. So I like that whole multi-color combination in a way. I don't know how to put words on it, but each color combination somehow made a little vibrant combination. But each different color combination work together and all these mixed color combinations like for instance, one, the chair that I'm sitting at now has like a burgundy seat and a pale pink structure and that combination is in my eyes very nice but that one, together with the rest of the collection, creates um vibration in a way that is considered.
Sarah Gottlieb:That is like the whole, that's, that's the, the product in a way yeah, so almost like the, because what you did was then, from that acrylic raw aluminum chair, you kind of created a series of the same chair where the back and the seat is one color and then the aluminum frame is another color yes, so it's almost like the product becomes a two-colored yes and it's very simple, and then each chair has you can get different color combinations yes, exactly yeah, and you mean like and so what you mean is that for you, you don't see it as the single chair.
Sarah Gottlieb:Here's the one chair, which is these two colors yeah and it's that's not separate from the other chair that has another set of exactly because those whole things is all the.
Sarah Gottlieb:All the different ones is the same it's one, so it's one yeah, so it's almost like so when you create, is it when you created that color scale, like even though in one object, in one chair, it's only two of the colors? Yeah, but those two colors came about because you kind of create the wholeness of all the color combinations, exactly, yeah, so you're like I can have the burgundy and the pink, the light pink, here, because I have the yellow, and they all work together very nice.
Fredrik Paulsen:So, it's not only that they work together, nice Together they create a whole. They work on their own. But when you see them all together, that's when you somehow Ah, this is how I was thinking you get the whole spectrum in a way, when you see them all together, and I think that's interesting because it's so much about the color and the color combination, but then it becomes something else.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:I don't know, fuck man, I don't know how to explain it.
Sarah Gottlieb:No, when it comes to color, nothing is ever simple, luckily. Otherwise there wouldn't be much reason to make a podcast about it. But then Frederik gets an idea. Why don't we step next door and look at the full collection of chairs? Maybe that'll make things a bit easier to understand. Okay, we're out in your space. Yeah, we're looking at the five chairs Chair one and you have like the one that you talked about, burgundy, light pink. Then you have like hot pink I love that word hot pink and like cartoon yellow. Then you have sky blue with like Klein blue, then you have like grass green with like lime green, and then you have orange with warmer hot pink yeah, this one is called um tangerine and dream tangerine and dream yeah, money and chartreuse klein a little wave.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, uh, honey and pizzazz, cotton candy and wine, cotton candy and wine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that. You have to taste it.
Sarah Gottlieb:You have to taste it. I think also what I like about actually, when you talk about it like that and for me as well with the colors it's that you have juxtapositions.
Fredrik Paulsen:That's the word. Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Gottlieb:You are like, and it's about the juxtaposition, it's kind of where the things messes with your brain.
Fredrik Paulsen:It's like where the rainbow is there and it's not there.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, exactly, maybe that's it.
Fredrik Paulsen:It's the rainbow yeah, it is because and these color combinations, I mean it's funny because these two vibrate this one here makes more sense, it's more more calm in a way, but this combination, together with this combination, creates a whole. It's not the same tone all over again, it it's. It creates something else. And this here it's two contrasting colors in a way, but they make sense, but together this is. This is between these two that things are happening, and and together with all this here, then something is happening and I don't know, I can't really explain it, but there is something I'm after and it's reflecting light in a way, and this somehow, I don't know it radiates energy in a way. And this, for instance, this example here I got really blinded by the sunlight one. I shut my eyes and I was really blinded, and then you can see the patterns on the.
Sarah Gottlieb:Retina or whatever physiological yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:It was like dots floating around in front of my eyes because I was so blinded by the light, and it was this orange and this pink. So I mean I wanted to recreate that notion, so it's all, have this somehow experiences from light in a way. So it's uh. But that's for me is very important and it's funny because then when I create this combination here, yeah, I never thought I would create a white chair, it's white.
Sarah Gottlieb:We're back to the paint Margiela, but still not.
Fredrik Paulsen:But now I landed. This is so funny because for people this would be the solution 1A, Like ah, just a white chair done. For me it's like landing on then, after creating all this, and then landing on the white. For me this white is so important in a way because this one also creates light, because for me otherwise, like you can see that white is like ah, that's, that's not the color, it's just a white. But for me this, this one, is like when I did this white chair. For me it's like this is the one I landed on, this beautiful thing and also the way that it is.
Sarah Gottlieb:It is not about any combinations, it's all white but I think also with this one it's because then you see the kind of very, you know the essence, you're back into the essence of creating the chair and you're revealing all the little details in the kind of aluminum holes and the screw and you can see everything.
Fredrik Paulsen:It's very, it looks very honest yeah, and it's so funny because it's what it is, kind of thing yeah, and it's so funny because people are so easily fooled or tricked by colors and patterns. So people were always looking at my work and oh, he's the postmodern guy. He does Memphis stuff and he's very postmodern, 80s inspired.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah yeah, and that is so. You know, that's one true in one way, but that you have only been looking at the at the top, top, first layer, yeah, of things. Because if you took away all the colors, if you painted everything black, would it still be the pomo guy? Then people would the same guys would probably, probably. I was saying, oh, he's the modernist, I don't know it's. It's so funny to like not getting stuck in one style or whatever like, but truly like working on a on a level that is not based on different styles.
Sarah Gottlieb:You can somehow relate to different styles, but it's, it's, I don't know it's, it's universal in a different way to me, frederick's work is design boiled down to its essence, where you can see the materials, the craftsmanship and the functionality. It's design at its most honest, with everything unnecessary stripped away.
Fredrik Paulsen:I mean for me. My work is hardcore yeah it's very, very hardcore and it's a little bit, I don't know I feel like it's straight talking.
Sarah Gottlieb:Do you know what I mean? Like it's not. You're not beating about the bush yeah you're kind of like it's a chair, it has a seat, it has a back, it has some legs. Yeah, here you go. Yeah, you don't need anything else, yeah exactly Everything I do.
Fredrik Paulsen:it's an expression of my somehow despise, in a way, of the superficial bullshit that surrounds design. I hate these somehow commercial things that is there only for you to somehow express wealth or like to, I don't know, to decorate your home in a way and it's so double and I love, I love everything that is somehow double meaning in a way, because you know, you know what I do also is you know people use it, people buy it to somehow decorate their homes with.
Sarah Gottlieb:It is what it is, yeah.
Fredrik Paulsen:But decisions that I make is so direct and so straightforward and so I don't know. Simple, in a way it has to do with my somehow despise of consumerism, in a way Because it's a type of anti-design. It's I construct my furniture as a engineer would construct a bridge yeah, or whatever stuff like that. It's very, you know, pragmatic and it's not all the solutions I do construction solutions.
Sarah Gottlieb:They are based on like the most pragmatic way of like binding those two pieces together in a way. But that's also because I also feel like with Joy, like your furniture line. I feel like both the products, the chair, and you have like a few like a chair and a stool and a bench and tables and shelves and shelves uh, they're all constructed as just as you're just describing now, but I also feel like you are.
Sarah Gottlieb:You are now at a point where you approach color and the use of color in your work in the same way yeah you know, it's systems in a way yeah, it's like systems and it's like cutting bullshit away and it's just like these two.
Sarah Gottlieb:This color, like it's I don't know it's so weird because in a way, it's like there's lots of nuances in your colors but somehow the the nuances and the tones of color that you choose feels like a, like a no bullshit color. Yeah, yeah, here's a no bullshit color and I put it together with this no bullshit color to make zing, yeah, no bullshit, yeah, no, but I, I'm, I'm allergic to bullshit.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, visual bullshit yeah and bullshit, bullshit yeah, oh, I hate it. Alright, let's drop all the bullshit and hear what Frederik's brought Something that inspires him. And what have you brought Something?
Fredrik Paulsen:that I brought up earlier.
Sarah Gottlieb:I'm leaving, I'm sitting, you're leaving me. Frederik is running away into his studio finding inspiration. It's a big studio. You found it, oh, oh, just the packaging. It's here. What is it, frederik?
Fredrik Paulsen:It's a black light bulb type of bulb that makes everything else glow in the dark exactly, and it has that really deep purple color.
Sarah Gottlieb:That's the sound. Yeah, yeah, that's the sound. I like also the box. Yeah, it's an amazing box.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, I bought it first time I was in LA, 19 years old.
Sarah Gottlieb:I love that 25 years ago 25 years ago and it's still sitting on your shelf.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, in this box, because I think it's.
Sarah Gottlieb:But the box is like part of it.
Fredrik Paulsen:It is.
Sarah Gottlieb:Because we have had a bit of walk around in your studio and you're not like. You don't seem like you have like lots of kind of inspirational objects around in a way but this one you have, and you've had it for 25 years and it's been sitting in your studio, yeah, 25 years. Yeah, how do you feel like this reflects the way that you source inspiration for colors?
Fredrik Paulsen:what I like about this is that it's so. It works almost as this image does.
Sarah Gottlieb:We have the light bulb and we have this raid it radiates yeah, it's like kind of like a technical drawing of the light bulb which is purple, like as the light bulb, and then on the, the background or out it background or out from it, shines this kind of like psychedelic squared space of like pink and black squares.
Fredrik Paulsen:Yeah, and that's a very great illustration of how I think things that inspires me works. Things that inspires me works, it goes.
Fredrik Paulsen:It has so many different meanings and and functions and for me, like this is so interesting that it is a light in a box and I don't use it and it's sitting inside of the box and when you open it it's black, but it creates other things to light to, to turn into light in a way. But most importantly, this is I mean, this is not a fancy thing. It is, uh, it's, yeah, it's a very common little object, but it's not a normal light bulb. It's not like a beautiful thing that you found in a hardware store. It's a very specific. You find it in a type of youth culture Store, it's. It really relates to like I don't know, underground raves, rock and roll, music, counter culture. In a way, it is about something else and it's about, yeah, having a good time in a way but maybe that's.
Sarah Gottlieb:I think it's actually quite nice, because for me from the outside it's about this again, about the juxtaposition of things. It's about, you know, you making design which is super kind of like the getting into the center of things, like the essence of design, and then again putting like tie-dye, crazy batik colors on stuff, yeah, or like creating a chair which is as like this, like extracted as possible in chair one, and then putting kind of like really intense colors on it, putting it together, so you kind of you have this thing about lagging something, which is like the ultra simplistic form and then all the crazy human side and culture that can be created around that thing well put there you go okay, good, I think we're done.
Sarah Gottlieb:I think that it was a pleasure to talk to you about it, nice.
Fredrik Paulsen:Likewise.
Sarah Gottlieb:I want to say thank you. It was exciting to talk about colors and your design, and I think we should then just listen to the sound of this deep purple necklight thing.
Sarah Gottlieb:A huge thank you to Frederik for generously sharing his thoughts on color and what design can be. Now all that's left to hear is what Sophie has created from Frederik's deep black dark purple. Hi, sophie, I'm back. Hi, sarah, so you have worked on interpreting the color deep dark black purple and I'm really excited to hear the musical take you've come up with. Uh, can you tell us about a?
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:bit about your process. Yeah, so first of all I wanted to make something dark, like the color. Um, I mean dark is equal to bass and with a lot of sup, like that's the lowest frequency you can like hear, that's audible for for humans. And, yeah, I, I was like find a sub bass but also a more distinguishable bass. That means it has to be a little bit higher than the sub, yeah, so that we can hear some movement in the sound. And then I was like we want something strong and high frequency, like high pitch, to come in to reflect this purple color, with the short wavelengths and the high frequencies. And still, I want us to go to a dark nightclub in Berlin. So how do we get there?
Sarah Gottlieb:Like take the Ryanair yeah.
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:And so, yeah, so first I made the bass the sub and then I broke it with a bass where I, from that bass, created a new sound with something called sound toys, like some plugins that are very fun to play around with. Oh cool, yeah, it was very fun for me to play around with in this exact track because I wanted this big room to come in and have its own role in the composition. So it actually you can hear it behind it's coming in sometimes to take some space and be its own instrument.
Sarah Gottlieb:Yeah, so you started doing the. You wanted to kind of create this space, this deep bass space and you got to play with your new sound toys and what happened then?
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:yeah, so from this bass line that I made, I created a sound from that with the sound toys that was very high pitched, yeah, and also use something called stutter which brings a rhythm into. So, basically, bass in this track is a drone, like my bass, yeah, and I wanted to bring rhythm into that. So I use something called stutter and on top of this stutter, like this little, it makes more like come in like little spiky things. Yeah, I added some plugins, like one called Devil Luck, one called Little Altar Boy, to make it more high pitch and more crazy, to make it more high pitch and more crazy, and uh, yeah, then I did a lot of processing all around in between the tracks, um, and added, of course, a kick.
Sarah Gottlieb:I love that if you could just list down like and it's like a menu, almost like today we're gonna eat, today we're gonna listen to was it altar boy?
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:and yeah, and the devil luck and the devil luck with a bit of a kick. Yeah, well, that's like. I've basically been mixing, mixing, mixing. It's like cooking sometimes.
Sarah Gottlieb:That's good, I love that is there any other um kind of uh, great ideas you want to share with the listeners about this piece of music?
Sofie Søe AKA Aloo:No, I think I would probably just say like, at the end, I just wanted to bring it more and more into the club and the party and the neon lights and the stroboscopes and make it, yeah, kind of a trans techno vibe. So it ends there. We only have one minute, so you know, these tracks usually just develop over like half hour or whatever. But yeah, it ends there. It ends there. It's quick build up well, I think.
Sarah Gottlieb:I think we should actually ask the business to put their headphones on, turn up the get comfortable and close your eyes, because here comes the sound of deep, dark black purple, to be continued. So Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who loves colors and design just as much as you do. Hopefully they will enjoy it as well. If you'd like to see more about Frederik Poulsen's work, head over to my website, sarahgodliebdk, under the podcast section. This episode was brought to you by Flügge and made possible with support from the Danish Arts Foundation. Thanks again for listening. See you next time on the Sound of Color.
