Solving for Color Deserts

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AJ:

Welcome to Once Upon a project where we uncover the wildest most ambitious stories in design. I'm your host, AJ Paron, design futurist for SANDOW Design Group, bringing you insights from your favorite design brands, interior Design Magazine, metropolis, Design Milk, and ThinkLab.

Today we're diving into a topic. Everyone has an opinion on color.

We all know the shades we love and the ones we can't stand, but there's so much more to explore. We're going to unpack the psychology of color and how it shapes our experience, our lives in the built environment, and how it can do good in the world.

I'm incredibly lucky to sit down with one of my design heroes. Laura Guido Clark, a true authority on color and its emotional power.

So let's jump into the conversation and start our journey into the world of color.

AJ: So I have people ask me all the time about color, and they ask about it. In regards to neurodiversity, they ask about it in, in regards to psychology, they've seen a TikTok video that's talking about a color challenge or something and they're like, what's your take on color?

And it's like, well, that's a very complicated question, but really your business that you've started, Love Good Color, is really trying to tackle many of those issues. Can you tell us a little bit about your company?

Laura: the main purpose of Love Good Color is to think about color as a language. I feel that we haven't often connected. Color to words, and yet when we ask people about color, they could tell you their favorite color. But when you ask them how they want to feel in a space, you have a conversation.

So my thing has always been that color must be a conversation. And that conversation is so rich that it leads you in a direction that allows you to apply color for impact. And that's what Love Good Color does.

AJ: And it takes the conversation that, like, we used to have as kindergartners, right? Where it's like, what's your favorite color? Mine's blue. Mine's green. Mine's black. Whatever. It's, we, sometimes, professionally, we're still stuck in that very antiquated, or, Um, maybe I would say it's a, it's a very simple model, right?

And you know, I do a lot of public speaking and I, I stole this from you, Laura. I'll say, tell me what's your favorite color? And someone in the audience will say blue, right? Because blue is very popular. And then I throw up a slide of all the different blues and intensities and shades and hues and I go, okay, which one was the one you were thinking in your head?

And they're like, it's not on there, or it's the one at the top right, or it's the one at the top bottom. But those are two completely different blues between two different people, but we have no language to talk about I see blue, you see blue, what's in between. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing with the company and what you do for clients.

Laura: I mean, in a nutshell, like what you're talking about is that we often mistake hue as the answer when actually it's only one dimension of color. Hues are drawdowns from light to dark. They represent color families. What I believed was missing was temperaments, which is what we added to our color system.

Those are like emotive traits. Those are colors that actually feel very similar across the board, which makes it easier to identify because once you understand what a temperament is and how you want to feel, you can connect the two. As you said, if you say Blue is your favorite color. You have no way of understanding.

It is a dead end conversation. You, you don't know where to pick up, um, the conversation. But when you start connecting it to language, when you start connecting it to temperament, you can then begin your journey to apply color in a much more, I believe, profound way.

AJ: I wanted to have a blue in a space, but I want it to be calming, I want it to be restful, I want it to be, um, cozy, that's, that's a different temperament of the actual hue we're trying to find than something that might be energizing in a blue that might be in a nightclub that's trying to get people to, you know, get up a dance or, or things like that, where we're looking for different types of, you know, behaviors and responses, human responses to that, even though it's still blue, right?

Laura: right. It's still blue, but you're asking something different and, and this is the thing that I always remind people that, um, the saturation and brightness is often more important than the hue itself. And you and I have had these discussions, right? It's really very important, um, to identify that because as you said, if there's an energizing color that has this electrified feeling, it's very different than something mixed with white that's like fresh and clean and has a very different sensibility.

And it really affects the way that you feel in that room. And then you have to start layering. What else are you putting in the room? How many other colors are you mixing? What is the context? All of those things, you know, because color very rarely resides by itself. It really is contextual.

AJ: So you're working with clients on environments, on products, on branding, like multiple levels of, application for, for color, and then you also have your non profit, so do you want to talk about ColorCore,

Laura: Yeah, so, AJ, I found that my clients were benefiting from um, Applying color and creating connection with their consumer, their clients, and these were powerful connections. And then I started to imagine all of the people who never get that, who live in what I call sometimes visual deserts, who are allocated spaces that don't feel respectful of who they are, nor representative of who they are.

And so, in 2011, I founded Project ColorCorps with the idea that we would take color, and education and empowerment into the communities, and that we would work together to create environments that were reflective of the communities and really created a sense of belonging and joy. So, it's the process of education, but it ultimately leads to transformation, but it's their, their leading the transformation.

And that's where the power really lies.

AJ: I think that's so cool. It's like the PeaceCore, but it's Project ColorCore.

Laura: Exactly. That's, that's exactly why I named it that, it was the Peace Corps, but for color, it was about spreading, you know, color, joy, and um, into communities. So, I love that you said that.

AJ: yeah, I mean, that's why I love you, Laura, because you're always trying to do good things for the world. And this is where, you know, design can really matter. So cool. You want to share today a project, that you did with Project ColorCore,

Laura: it was the very first project we ever did, and it was also happening simultaneous to, um, my researching tens of thousands of colors for Love Good Color, trying to understand does color have another dimension. Does color have another meaning that I haven't figured out? And, um, the project happened simultaneous, so it, it was like almost a proving ground for the things that I was thinking about.

And one of the things that was really Difficult about the project AJ was how hard it was to get our first project. Like I would have thought if I would say like, we want to come into your community and we want to teach you all about this and we want. I was like writing notes to schools, nobody would get back to me.

I thought maybe I wrote it wrong and asked them like they thought I was asking them to paint my house or something. I just thought, why is no one answering me? This is crazy. And then finally I found this. Super dynamic principal, her name was Lisa Blair, and um, her school was located in what she called, um, the killer's corridor of Oakland because the kids were in lockdown from drive by shootings.

I don't know how often it happened, but quite often enough. So it was a very, very tough neighborhood. And she basically said to me, like, We want to give you, you know, this is your canvas, and we want you to come in and do what you do. And, This was something that made me, it prompted me to have to develop what is now the formal plan for Project ColorCorps.

Like, how are we going to do our process? What is this going to be about? And the most important thing for me was that it was an empowerment organization and that we weren't doing for, we were doing with. We were in unity with community. It was not some design thing that we are bestowing you with. Now,

AJ: It was co creation. You're co

Laura: co creation. Yes. It had to be that way. And so, the, the process had to start really with, you know, the kids and community and the survey. And then, and then I had to develop a program to teach them about color. But it was that survey, the one where I said, Can you tell me your favorite color? That I realized, Oh my God, I do not know anything about these kids or community when I asked that question. I Okay, what am I going to do with this school? Like, how are we going to do anything? But then I flipped it around and I said, Alright, you come to this school every day, you walk by this neighborhood, you share with me the feelings that you're hopeful for when you come to your school. And that's when I had the conversation.

And then it was, It was explosive, AJ. I mean, it was explosive. The things that the kids said were super meaningful. There isn't one school that doesn't say happy or excited. They just, that's a big word, but then it becomes very proprietary to their neighborhood. Like you see in one neighborhood, the word sparkly comes up.

You know, it's like, whoa, I never saw that word before. Or, we've had, um, You know, communities that are dealing with, um, maybe immigration and you see safe or natural or brave or you start to see these words emerging. And one of the most perplexing things I heard was from another school, um, of, of older kids who told me that they, they want to feel nostalgic.

And I thought, wow, that's such a like. different word for younger community. I said, wow, you're so young. Like, what, what would nostalgia mean to you? And they said, oh, that's very easy. None of us come, come from here and we all want to feel what we felt in our country. They wanted the colors of their country so that they felt at home.

Which was very moving to me. So with the E. C. Reams Academy, it helped me to actually validate that my way in was the way in and that language was the way that we could connect things and that language could create impact because once I understood language, once I could connect it to a temperament and then create a palette, then I was creating what was the true need for the people of the community, and it really represented them.

And then I could go teach them about color. And I think so big a part of my process is, All the kids need to feel seen and heard. And we ask them like what their favorite color is and to give us a quote. And they say like super profound things like, um, um, I love the color black because that's who I am.

I'm strong black and I'm beautiful. Or, um, I love pink. It has this lost feeling. It's wide and it's beautiful. I mean, really profound things. Things that made you like, you know. Really, they're so moving and so when we go in and we talk to the kids about color, we read, we have them read the, the quotes that they say, we have them participate and they're very proud because they know that we, we see them and that we hear them.

And I think that that's a very vital part of the process and the principal said to me, you don't understand even if you never came back. to the school, which I know you will, and you will come back and you will paint the school. She said, you just gave them one of the biggest gifts because you cared enough to ask them about who they are and how they feel.

And she said, nobody asks them these kinds of questions. was really a remarkable eye opener for me, I don't know. I just felt a lot of joy. I felt a lot of pain. I remember, the incident happened with Trayvon Martin and they were doing these art projects, which were really painful to see the fear that they had.

Um, one little boy asked me if I knew of a color that could stop violence, which, that's a pretty profound and powerful thing. I don't have a color that could stop violence, but we did talk about how we can shift the energy of the school and how they could feel more powerful. But these were all dialogues that happened over the course of nine months to a year when we're working on these projects.

Um, we have many touch points. Um, the second touch point is the color workshop. The first is understanding, you know, who they are and what's important to them. And then the third one is. You know, working with a designer and going back and selecting their words and creating two very different feelings and having them vote.

So they take responsibility for what they want in their school. It's all reflective of them. And then once they vote, we come back again and they come out and they paint with us and they help to transform the environment. So it's, this is all these touch points of really being Part of something and understanding that a big part of you is in what we're creating together.

AJ: So what was the canvas in the school that you got to work with?

Laura: In this case, we did the entire school.

AJ: Like the inside and the outside?

Laura: Um, no, but I have a good story about the inside. So, the outside, we just did the outside. And one of the other things that happened on the outside was that the kids couldn't go out to play when it was raining because they had this uneven concrete and they would slip and fall.

So, we spent two weekends just playing. Cleaning up that plate, you know, the playground, um, making sure that that was good. We painted the entire school, um, which

AJ: of the building,

Laura: outside the entire

AJ: Which is the neighborhood.

Laura: It was the neighborhood. It was like the beacon in the neighborhood, which is why one of the things that was important for me with Project ColorCorps was that I wanted us to really do exteriors.

I felt people might want, you know, tackle, a teacher might tackle her own classroom or his own classroom, but that not very often was the outside. And so, you know, being addressed. And so I really wanted to concentrate on. The United States and I wanted to concentrate on exterior environments because I saw so many schools and community centers that needed it.

But the interesting thing was the two women who cleaned the school were so excited about what we were doing on the exterior of the school. They asked us if we had any leftover paint. We gave them all the leftover paint and they painted the inside.

AJ: Oh, you're kidding.

Laura: they were so excited and motivated. So they, it is this thing, like you could see, like, once things start to happen, everybody really starts to participate.

Everybody feels like this is a beacon in their community. It's the new community center. And I believe it's why, you know, after 25 projects now, or 26, we've never, ever been graffitied or tagged,

AJ: We hear all the time from, in the design community, it's not just about the, The actual cost that it is to install something is the upkeep.

It is the maintenance that sometimes is the, the problem to, to actually getting things to change. So, from that standpoint, what were your biggest fears at that point when you were working on this project? Because you had no idea

Laura: No, we had no idea how it was going to turn out, how,

I mean, we felt it would be well received because the kids were so excited. The mural actually said, we are the change, because every day the principal would get up and say, who are we? And they'd say, E. C. Reams, and then she'd say, who are we? And they'd say, world class leaders.

So, we wanted to remind them, they were the change. You are the change. You are that person that's going to make the world better. And we just wanted them to see these words every day. But we didn't know if it was going to be tagged in a week or a month or anything. And one of the things that we do is we leave the paint and we leave the, we leave all of the instructions so that the, the building and ground staff could.

help keep it up, and we found that, um, for the most part, it's pretty well kept up because it's beloved by the community. And I think that's the key, AJ. It's like, it's beloved by the community because it is of the community, right? It's not just something that just plopped down. This was something that's really about them.

AJ: And it, at the end, it was a piece of art.

Laura: was a piece of art. Yeah, and people would stop and people would take pictures and they would go, Oh my gosh, what is this? And, and it was the beginning of Project ColorCorps, having other people in schools reach out to us and say, I saw what you did. Could you come to our school? And that was the beginning. I never ever had that problem again of like finding a, um, a space. It might take a little while to find a space but it's so much easier than that very first project.

AJ: it kind of brings tears to my eyes understanding the impact that it had on the kids. But what do you think, how do you think the community changed after this project?

Laura: Well, here's an example. There were these two girls and they said, could you create a space where we feel respected? And I said, well, what does it mean to feel respected?

And they said, could you create a space where people want to visit us because nobody wants to visit us now.

AJ: Wow.

Laura: afterwards, when we asked them, they said, you know, they felt everyone would want to visit them. That this was a place that had deep meaning, and it was beautiful, and they had a lot of pride. So, it was that shift in feeling respected, because they were of a place that they felt was representative of them.

AJ: Did you get any data or facts from the school and, you know, it's always so hard to get it because of privacy information, but anything even anecdotally that you were able to get from the principal?

Laura: I mean, I have a lot of really good anecdotal stories, but we recently redid a school, and we did a partnership with Eat, Learn, Play, which they did the playground. And, Kaboom, um, we worked together, and they did, basketball space. We did the entire school, and enrollment is up.

Parents want their children to go to that school. We noticed some of the houses around it were getting repainted. I mean, things that, like, you start to notice that there's a sense of real pride. parents wanted their kids to go there. Because they thought it was, a beautiful school. It was energetically pleasing.

Their kids thought, were so happy there. You know, we always get quotes from the kids. The kids are, like, happy. Um, they say they feel happier. They say they feel safer. They want to go out and play more because it feels good out there. So, we do get those kinds of things. But we, we are really trying to figure out a way to measure.

Um, because I think that, Our story, we have many stories, you know, more and, you know, more anecdotal stories and a little bit of measurement but not really quantitative as much quantitative data as I would hope.

AJ: It's always hard on any design product to get

Laura: Yes.

AJ: it does, it does help pave the way for, for more of that to happen, and, you know, I do know I've worked on many schools that. The outside of the building, if it doesn't look like it's a fun school or, or something that they're proud that their child is going there.

That, you know, every parent, every caregiver wants to feel a sense of pride that they're doing their child right and that they're sending them to this place that is great. And you could have the best teachers, you could have the best curriculum, but on the outside if it looks like it's a jail, which many schools were modeled off of,

Laura: Mm hmm. Yeah.

AJ: know, it's, it's really important to bring that. So let's dive in a little bit more on your color expertise because it's a hot topic for lots of different projects and lots of different, um, innovations. So what do you think is the biggest misnomer about color and how to use color.

Laura: I often like, I've spent a lot of my career really talking about how color comes at the beginning of a project, not the end, and I think that oftentimes it's thought of the band aid or at the end of a project. You know, we created this chair What color should it be? When we could have been influencing the materiality, the way that color is perceived, um, why are we doing this chair and what is making it proprietary?

There's so many things that need to be coming in at the beginning. And I always say color is not a band aid, you know, you can't like do triage on this, you can't like say, oh, can you help me? You know, change this at the very, very end because we lose a lot of potential and it's the same in spaces. It needs to be programmed earlier on because it is a storytelling part.

I always think of us as color directors. I say, if you look at a film and you look at what filmmakers do in an hour and a half, they use color really powerfully to help tell a story. You are the color director. You are part of the storytelling narrative, just like other parts of the space, and you must be working together to program the needs of the people in that space.

And so for me, I think it's one of the biggest things that I try to do is talk to people about when they should be talking about color and the answer is, it's in the beginning.

AJ: Was there any battles or misconceptions maybe you had going into the project?

Laura: Well, I think I was just so open and curious. It was our very first project, so I don't think I had any preconceived ideas, and maybe that was a really good thing because I'd never done it before. And I always actually, when I look at my projects, I always imagine that this is an empty canvas and that I've never done it before.

Because I don't want preconceived ideas. I don't want to imagine like, oh, if it's consumer electronic, then I need to be thinking like this. Everything is perfect. Brand new. Everything requires curiosity. So I think what was a little bit hard was that the school. Felt that they could help fundraise for this project.

And in the end, um, it became very difficult for them. We were a new organization and so we had to do a grassroots campaign and it ended up being a $50,000 project, which was our very first project. And, um, you know, the board had to decide, are we gonna go for it and just we're gonna go for it. And my feeling was.

We committed to these kids. And their feeling was that was more important than anything else. And we would figure out a way to raise more money. So, that didn't exactly go the way that we had anticipated, Because we had gone into it thinking that we were going to get some, not matching exact funds, but funding enough that would really help us on that journey.

And it just made me realize, Backwards things are that we as nonprofits identify what is missing in our world that make, make it a better place, but we're the ones begging for money to do it, that it just feels like if we know what's missing, why aren't we implementing more policy changes? Right?

That's what I'm thinking. Like, why aren't we going and, and advocating and saying, Hey, we know now this is better. We know that kids are performing better or they're, you know, they're happier, all of the things that we know. And yet we're still bound by the amount of money we can raise.

AJ: Right. So were you able to finally in the end raise enough money or did the school have to find the funds?

Laura: We raised the money. We really made the big push. And I, I really have to say that I, I love my board for that because they could have said. I mean, I know that from a heart standpoint, I was so in and I really wanted this to happen, but they were into, they realized that that commitment we made to those kids, that it would have been devastating to take them this far and not be able to finish what we started or for them not to see this come to fruition because it was all about them.

So, uh, I had no idea that this That the funding could not be there, you know, so that was like a very, that was a tough one because it happened about three weeks before we were ready to pay.

AJ: Oh, wow.

Laura: So we had to make a mad push to get money and it was all grassroots, AJ, it was all funded by friends and family.

AJ: Wow.

Laura: And so, because we had just started the non profit, we didn't have anything to really, So, um, that definitely, um, threw a wrench in it and the other thing that was interesting that happened was that I had done a talk at DWR and they were helping us, you know, to raise awareness and, and, and, and help, help with money.

And this woman in the audience said, you know, I don't. I can't contribute money, but my husband is a musician and maybe he could help write a song for the school. And it was so incredible. He just did this really incredible rap song with the kids. He came and he taught them. All about, you know, how he was going to write this.

They all sang it. It's like on our video. Um, and the funny part about it was, like, the kids all of a sudden thought that I, like, knew Beyonce. They're like, hey, can you tell Beyonce that, you know, I'm a really good singer? And could you tell me? It's just like, I'm like I don't know, Beyonce, or they would say things to me like, Hey, are we going to paint today?

And I'm thinking, I have no paint can with me, you know, but every time, Hey, we going to paint today? And I'm like, no, not yet, but we're going to be painting really soon. So the kids were just very present and very excited about everything, including, you know, doing this song. And, uh,

I just said,

AJ: Did the song work into the color at any

Laura: Oh yeah, it works into the color.

It works into what we're saying. It's, it's the whole video. Like every time we do a project, we do a video and it takes you through the process beginning to end. And it is on the EC Reams video and the words are fabulous. And I can't, to this day, even believe. That he would do that, you know, um, so that was like this like wonderful surprise that that happened and I just felt that that project.

It was very, it was a very magical project. That was actually what the kids picked. It was called Magical Energy, the two words with the color palette was Magical Energy. That's what they picked. The other, the other one was Happy Rainbow and that did not win, but Magical Energy did and I really believed that it had a magical energy to it and that it was the beginning of the non profit as we know it and it really drew magnetically more people towards the organization.

Appreciate

AJ: So walk us through visually looking at magical energy, the actual, the mural, you know, what What does it feel like? Describe the colors that were used. Describe the energy. I mean, I kind of got an idea for magical energy. But, like, walk us through that. If, if, this is, you know, this is a podcast. We can't see it.

We will put things in the show notes, maybe the video and some pictures that you can see. But walk us through it visually.

Laura: So when you see it, because of the way that we juxtapose the colors, there is a way that it feels like it is giving off an energy. So you can have a yellow green next to a blue green next to a teal next to and it's the way we layered the color. That it made it feel like it was vibrational. There was something, it was emanating, that felt very representational of the kids.

And that energy made it feel like there was a bit of magic to it. And it did not depart, like it wasn't something that was high, high contrast, so it wasn't jarring, but it wasn't analogous, it wasn't monotonous. It sat in that really sweet, space that had just enough of that contrast that made it feel like the three bears.

This one feels just right. And so that's kind of how it feels when you see that up in the, in, in, um, the school.

AJ: And so many times when we're looking for that feeling. We also think of like the behavior of the individuals interacting with it. What, what was the behaviors or the human reactions that you were looking for? Or maybe the kids we're looking for from this project.

Laura: What they wanted to feel aside from respected is they wanted to feel that there was a space that, of course, reflected. their energy and their energy or the energy they were seeking was something that sat between it was balanced. I think that's what it was. It sat between something that had energy but was also calm simultaneously.

You have to understand that neighborhood was deeply charged. They did not want something that heightened their sensitivity because These kids were already aware that they could be in lockdown. That is a very scary thing. And so, they needed to feel a sense of balance, being grounded, hopeful. All of these things that had to kind of give them this feeling like, This is where I want to be today.

This makes me feel safe. And so that's, like, those are the emotions that we were really going for. And they mention some of these words, but magical energy, what I felt about it was that it was about who they were. They're magical. They have the right energy. That's what they're bringing to the space. And I think that that's really important in the whole empowerment mission, right, is that they're bringing that to the space.

and they own that. They can control that. That's why I said I don't really have a color, but we can create something that might make you feel a sense of, of safety, or pause, or reflection, or calm, or all of those things that they really desire to feel.

AJ: So you mentioned earlier that sometimes people are looking for color that has another dimension to it. And I kind of really believe that. I feel like there's a different dimension of color that we as human beings, not all of us have tapped into, but some people have tapped into that, that different dimension.

Like, what's your thoughts on that?

Laura: if you think about all of the sciences that color touches, physiology, psychology, so many, you know, uh, of the sciences, it really is quite wondrous how much dimension there is to color, and when you think that not only do you see color, you feel it, because it's a wavelength, it does have another dimension.

It is already sending messages to us that are absorbed by our skin. So we always think of it as something on the surface, but I always say it's actually far more reflective of the heart. It is emanating from a much deeper, deeper place. It might reside on the surface, but it goes beyond that. It pushes way beyond that.

And I think that's what I love about it so much, and it's so humbling for me because the more I learn, the more I'm like, I need to learn more. And I think that's the beauty of it, is that, I mean, color has a way of telling stories that sometimes words can't. It shows up before anything else. And that is quite remarkable.

AJ: And, you know, it, it reminds me of some of the research that's been done on individuals that have total blindness, where they put them in a color box and they can tell, tell the different, that there's different colors in the box because of the vibrations they can actually feel that, which seems very woo woo,

Laura: Yeah.

AJ: but there is a science back to that because it is a wavelength and there is something that can be measured.

Um, I think, yeah. You know, what's, what's difficult with people is there's a wide spectrum of, of people of how sensitive they are or desensitized, uh, to color and those vibrations and things like that. And, you know, my work with, uh, people that are on the spectrum, you know, I remember working with this adult woman who had very little language, but every color she saw, she saw an after image color.

So she was always screaming after image color, no matter where she was, being very agitated because imagine how that would feel if, you know, things are designed a certain way, but what your experience is something very, very different. And you, so you have to have great care when you're dealing with color because, you know, people don't all react to it the same way.

So have you found that as a challenge in your work that, you know, it's like. Here's a blue. How blue is this to you is the screaming at you and vibrating at a level that you can't handle or is it comforting like you can't always have those conversations with people, but I mean, you are starting to put words to it, but some people don't have the language back to actually tell you, so what has been your experience with trying to work with sensitive subjects?

Laura: I think the most important thing about color is that you have to have a profound respect for it. The people you're dealing with, that you need to be such a careful, empathic listener. For example, they might have an aversion to a certain color because it evokes a terrible memory for them. And there is such a thing as color memory.

If somebody tells me that that color makes them feel a certain way, I would never ever try to convince them otherwise. My job would be to Find a way to work with other colors that didn't make them feel that way. And I think that that's what I love about the system, is that if you're working in a certain temperament, and one of the colors in the temperament makes somebody feel that way, you can honor the same temperament, move across the spectrum, and give them other choices that actually are more respectful.

But you don't lose the feeling that they're going for. You don't have to go back and go to the library and go, Oh, now I have to guess what they want. And I think that's super important, right? Because you, you want to be a good listener and, and, and color is cultural. It's changes like in different climates, like the greater the amount of sun, like I find that the more you can.

Um, except more heightened, brighter colors a lot of the time. Um, so I think that you, I think the most important thing is being mindful of what people are, are saying, but having a common language and trying to rally around the feelings that everybody has, that can be common. The colors, then you move across and try to find, you know, what are those colors that will help you get there.

And there isn't just one way. I don't believe in prescriptive systems.

AJ: It's almost, um, would you call yourself a color psychologist? I know that's kind of a made up term, but it's like, I don't know how to describe you, Laura. Like,

Laura: I think I call myself a color humanist. Because it's really the human, I just love people, and it's the human response that I care the most about. I care about the people in the space. I want them to feel the way they need to feel. So that's kind of more how I describe myself. Yeah.

AJ: humanist is lovely. I like that. I would like that for Christmas. Thank you very much. Um, Laura, where can people find you? Like, if they want to learn more about your system or learn more about the work that you're doing or even Project ColorCore, where can they find you?

Laura: Well, we, we have a website at, you know, LoveGoodColor. com and ProjectColorCorps. org. So you could really see what we're doing and we have case studies in LoveGoodColor and definitely we have in ProjectColorCorps many, many stories of all the projects that we've done. So you could easily find what we're doing.

AJ: You're a lovely human being doing incredible work color many times can be a barrier as you know, when it's not used in the correct way, it can be something that is, has a very negative impact on humans.

So it's great to see all the knowledge that you're gaining and sharing and bringing hope to the community as well.

Laura: I really appreciate it. And I, I think for me, it's all about being of service, like how do we work together to learn new things, solve new problems. And really to use color more as a self, um, than something that creates boundaries.

I think that's what we need now more than ever. We just need to make the world better.

AJ: That's a wrap on today's episode of Once Upon A Project, I hope this conversation gave you a new lens on how color influences not only how we experience the built environment, but the power of doing good. Huge thanks to our guest, Laura Guido Clark for sharing her brilliance and to our amazing production team, Rob Schulte and Rachel Senatore for bringing these stories to life.

If you love this episode and want to hear more like it, head to surround podcasts. Dot com, your hub for design stories that matter. We'll be back soon with more design stories. Until then, keep dreaming big, keep pushing creative limits, and we'll see you on the next once upon a project.