Loreal
Role
Creative Manager
Start
2014
Projects
Print & Retail
Area
Colour Management, Creative Assets,
Print & Fabrication
Challenge
The colour needs to be "fashion right" within its context and season. Interpretation across ranges of Print, retail or fabrication must harmonize pleasingly and all components within an article must watch each other as well. And this should be the case not only in the store, but also in daylight and, of course, in the customers home under artificial lighting. Achieving all the above should not add cost or delay production.
It all started with a great program
A whole gamut of technologies, both established and emerging, seeks to address the issues. We created a special ICC profile or colour and the same tones were matched with other material (paint) in CMYK, RAL value. In manufacturing terms, this means translating design intelligence into production specifications for colour and size ratios, communicating these to the producers quickly, and then being able to monitor production to ensure the requirements are being met. A comprehensive accreditation scheme was developed to ensure that the approach was as precise and uniform.
A collaborative approach
Colour is the linchpin of the process. Until the colour is decided, no hair can be dyed, asset accessories matched, or even packaging ordered. Not only is this an extremely slow process, but it also represents a huge cost that most management seems unaware of. Loreal and my company developed technology to a high level in the early part of the supply chain – taking colour originated in design through to production on a massive scale. The objective was to produce the "right colours and styles" at the "right time" and in the "right quality".
