Colours of Arabia
Monday, December 12, 2016 at 4:28PMI was recently invited to attend a very special event hosted by Berger paints at Noire, Fairmont Dubai. We were to view some webisodes that told the story of a young blind girl and her Grandfather who embark on a journey together around the U.A.E. to experience color in a special way. Her grandfather explains color through experiences the girl has had growing up. The webisodes are beautifully shot against the landscape of the U.A.E and captures the message effortlessly.
We as bloggers got to witness first hand how it felt to have our sense of sight taken away for a few hours as we were invited to dine in the dark at Noire. We were escorted in pitch darkness to our tables and yes some of us stumbled! We laughed nervously as there was an anxious energy that surrounded us. We have all become so accustomed to being bombarded by information and visuals every second of the day that it is very abnormal for us to stay still. “Staying connected” has a very different meaning to us these days, while we seem to stay connected with the rest of the world we are slowly disconnecting ourselves from reality. And with our phones being taken away through the dinner made this more evident. As the waiters served us one course after the other I noticed my other senses worked that much harder to compensate for sense of sight.
It was a humbling experience to say the least. Being in a profession that is so visual I definitely felt incapacitated as i sat in pitch darkness through my dinner. It made me question if indeed we could experience life and all it’s glory in more ways than just one. This way of thinking is imperative when designing public spaces, it is so ignorant to design spaces for regular people without thinking of the special needs others may have.
This opened my eyes to a world of possibilities of how we can experience color, space, light and many more if we could just open up our minds. I must commend Berger paints for this unique initiative to educate people of these possibilities and raise the question of how we can mould our thinking to make this world a better place for everyone who inhabits it. 
Berger paints was established in the 1760 and today is a global force with a strong presence in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean Islands, the South Pacific, and the Middle East. They have a very informative and well laid out website with lots of tips and inspiration to choose your perfect color from their 1800 original hues. It also is equipped with tools such as the paint calculator! You can download their Color scheme Pro app from google play or the App store to create custom combinations easily. You can even select a color by uploading a photograph and picking the closest shades from it. If you have found the color you like? Get hundreds of monochromatic, complementary, and analogous color combinations and view them in a 3D room setting. This is such an exciting tool for me and i cannot wait to use it, I hope you will too.
…Until next time Stay Aware …Stay Funky!
