And I’m telling you, IJM not going to Milan this year (but that’s okay)

I’ve lost count of how many designers I’ve interviewed through the years – but this I can tell you with absolute certainty: the most talented creatives are modest, forthcoming and don’t mind talking about the mistakes they’ve made along the way. But whenever I interview someone who automatically assumes you understand everything they do and gets irritated if you don’t – then that’s usually a sign that I’m not only dealing with a bit of an ass but also with someone who is trying to make up for their insecurities. No prizes for guessing in which category the down to earth and extremely talented visual storyteller and color expert Frank Visser of IJM Colour falls.

I saw Frank last night at an open house in his Amsterdam studio. We talked, we drank and I gave him a copy of my book – after all, I had interviewed Frank for a chapter about color and spent a day with him working on a photoshoot in his studio in – what was it? – late 2017. You really should check it out if you want to understand how you can tell a story through color (and do let me know if you want to order a signed copy directly from the source). He showed me some of the photos he had taken during a recent trip to Lamu Island in Kenya, along with the paintings and matching color schemes he had made. Amazing stuff that made me forget for a while that I’m not going to Milan this year (and neither was Frank, by the way – so there). Let me leave you with some of the photos I took of Frank’s studio.

PS: I almost forgot the best part! Frank has a wonderful range of paint colors that you can order online. You can order a single color, but you can also order all the different colors that make up one of his stories. There are over a dozen stories to choose from and I think Happy Go Lucky is my favorite one so far.