architect: 5.5 designers
year: 2013
What is your favourite colour? What colour does your products identify with the most?
We don’t have a favourite color but the green that we used in our first project Réanim becomes year after year one of the typical colors of 5.5 designers.
Not only one color but a palette of flashy, bright and intense colors because our work is full of happiness. Design is a game and we like to play with color. Our latest project of exhibition design for the International Biennal of Design in Saint Etienne is a good example of this spirit.
This exhibition called “Are you kidding?“ is about humour in design, and it takes place in the Firminy church created by Le Corbusier. We were inspired by the color palette of Le Corbusier and we have imagined the space design of this exhibition like Colored confetis thrown in the space.
How much does the colour count for the commercial success of yours products?
A color product is more attractive and more photogenic and it’s why people like them, but when they do their final choice, they often choose a neutral color, white, black, because it fits easily with a lot of interiors. So it’s why we prefer to choose several colors, combining neutral colors for commercial purpose and colors that will make sense for the product. But even if we choose the white for a product, it doesn’t really mean anything because there are a lot of different whites. For our range of electric appliances for Moulinex which totally white, there was a long reflexion at the earliest stages of the project to arrive at this choice of a monochrome white which is the signature of the range.
What role does colour play when designing a product, and in particular for your Nailmatic project?
When we use a color in a project we always want to choose a color that accentuate the sense and the concept of the project. We are 4 designers and each one has his own taste and sensibility, and we want to eradicate basic struggles about taste.
So we usually try to have a rational approach with the color, quasi scientific like if the choice of the color was the result of a mathematic equation.
Usually the question of the color is just a small part of the project, but for Nailmatic, it was one of the main question because we had to create the visual identity of a brand that propose a colorama of 63 colors of nail lacquer. So we decided to use only the black and white in the graphic identity to highlight the color of the lacquer. In addition of this code, we used the pink which is like a kind of “cliché” of the color of the nail varnish. We defined also the way to use them: the black and white are used for graphic elements made with computer, the pink is used for handmade elements as if we used a nail lacquer brush to write on the packaging, and the color gradient is used as background inside packaging or on the verso of the company letter paper. But for sure, we have let the color express itself!
