Sue Wadden | Refresh Your Space and Transform Your Life With Color

Wadden began her career as a color expert at Sherwin-Williams in 1998, as an interior designer and color marketing specialist. Today, as director of color marketing, Wadden is the face and voice of color for Sherwin-Williams, responsible for the company’s overall vision and philosophy of color leadership.

With over 20 years of color marketing experience, Sue is an expert in color development, palette strategy, consumer, specifier and commercial color insights, color styling and trend forecasting. Wadden serves as editorial advisor to

STIR® magazine for design professionals and takes an active role in interfacing with consumer and trade media on topics surrounding color.

JOIN SUE WADDEN AND CRAIG BUNDREN AS THEY DISCUSS:

00:46 - The role of Director of Color Marketing - responsible for strategy of color for Sherwin Williams

01:31 - Getting to name colors

01:51 - No, it’s not like naming nail polish colors

02:05 - The color names are permanent

03:00 - There are 30,000 colors in the database and they each have to be unique

04:40 - Getting an internship at Sherwin Williams

06:32 - People don’t realize how many paint brands Sherwin Williams is responsible for

07:37 - How do all the different people look at color? The paradox of choice

09:20 - As a paint contractor you’re an applyer of color, the client chooses

11:26 - They don’t want people to be angry they can’t find the right color

12:45 - Sending free color chips directly to the consumer

12:53 - We keep learning, but we’re not sure where it’s going to go

14:28 - 157 Shades of white paint

17:40 - Sue uses her own house as a canvas to test out the colors

19:06 - Sue sees complexity in color - a combination of thousands of pigments

22:00 - Sponge painting and crazy color combinations of the 90s

23:00 - Craig’s dad’s office was Hunter Green

23:30 - The one thing you can count on in design is that you’re going to see it again

25:24 - The importance of grey and white

26:24 - We’re seeing more color come in

29:29 - Commercial and residential are on the same color cycle

30:30 - The colors are based on a ton of research

31:50 - Being held accountable to metrics and tracking

32:48 - The greatest influence on the direction of color

34:30 - Moving toward comfort colors

36:00 - Technology has an impact on our color choices because of the blue light from the screens

42:00 - Some colors range from popularity of 5 to 10 years

44:10 - People are starting to have a deeper emotional connection to color

46:15 - Relying on fan favorites but still try to keep it fresh

CONNECT WITH SUE WADDEN:

SHERWINWILLIAMS.COM

SWCOLORFORECAST.COM

SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHROMATIC PODCAST:

iTunes

Spotify

LEARN MORE ABOUT CRAIG BUNDREN AND THE CRAIG BUNDREN ART FOUNDATION:

Chromatic Podcast Site: www.Bundren.fm

Chroma Magazine: www.ChromaMag.com

Bundren Building Arts Foundation: www.Bundren.org

Bundren Painting: www.Bundren.com

Host: www.CraigBundren.com

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