Interview 

Pantone (Tim Young)

2014

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How important is color to your work?

I am working at a Kunsthalle.  As a graphic designer I frequently collaborate with artists. It is a great opportunity to learn from them about the use and handling of colors. When I work on something independently I often use the effects of light and shadow or certain color-based optical illusion. Moreover, I am completely fascinated by the play of colors as a result of paper marbling – nothing else could produce that kind of visual pattern.

 

How do you select colors?

In the selection of colors one always has to meet the demands of the content of the actual work. Anyways, I put more emphasis on  the harmony of colors, their relations to each rather than picking one out of them.

 

Do you attach specific emotions to colors?

There are methods of emotional effectivity by the means of color usage and I use them when required. But, as far as I’m concerned I do not associate specific emotions with colors. Nevertheless, in clothing I preferably wear white pieces and in addition to that I cannot even imagine myself in black.

 

The portfolio Pantone selected for the Artist Edition Covers is a poster project called “Optics/Chromatics.” How did you arrive at that title and how does it relate to the content of the poster?

The title refers to Goethe’s conception of colors as it opposed to the newtonian theory. While the first placed emphasis on experience, the sensation of colors, the second focused on the abstract mathematical structure of the spectrum. Although Goethe used both terms; by Cromatics he characterized his own endeavors and by Optics he named Newton’s inquiry. In my work I aimed to show the meaning of this distinction with simple means– with paper, light and shadow.

 

You cite Goethe’s “Theory of Colours” as a source of inspiration and point of departure for this project. What ideas from that text did you drawupon?

Goethe was the first who described the way of making colored shadows. My poster is a kind of demonstration of that very phenomenon.

 

Who are some artists that you admire?

Let me mention two artists as representatives of two distinctive possibility of handling visual effects. I admire the works of Anish Kapoor. I find really impressive the way he generates very special spatiality with bringing color into play with surface and shadow. On the other hand, as a counterpoint to Kapoor’s intensity and grandiosity, I am equally fond of the moderate style of David Pearson’s book-covers. In a silent and unobtrusive manner he changed our visual expectations concerning books.

 

Do you use Pantone color products in your work?

Of course I do. I doubt that any graphic designer can make it without them. By the way, I have a personal Pantone code. When I first presented Optics/Chromatics in an exhibition, the participants were given an identifying Pantone color generated from their names. Since then I have special feelings for Pantone 121.