“Color reflects an attitude toward life”

Graduate designer Hermann Rokitta, a specialist in product and brand esthetics from Mühlheim in Germany, acted as a mentor for the color concept development process and is fully aware of the importance of esthetics for compression stockings.

Bauerfeind life: What did you find particularly challenging about developing Bauerfeind’s new color concept?
Designer Rokitta: The brief was to come up with a color concept that was suitable for the purpose, appropriate for all target groups, and had a strong sense of fashion too. What was challenging was coming up with a strategy that could combine the tricky area of fashion colors and the established colors of the Bauerfeind brand to make the color segment seem perfectly natural. I think the final selection of colors achieves this.

What is the “right” color choice based on?
Designer Rokitta: Color and style are not a matter of taste and they’re not down to chance either. The right colors are the result of our attitude to life in close association with incidents from world affairs too. People’s experience of the world and attitude toward life are interpreted by trend research agencies, trend institutes, and the color management experts of the automobile, furniture, and textile industries, and this is what gives rise to new color trends for subsequent years. For example, cosmetics were an important source of inspiration for the “right” colors for the VenoTrain compression stockings. The carefully coordinated colors associated with beauty care have been part of people’s lives, their bodies, and their skin, for thousands of years, and they have always reflected the spirit of the times.

What is the significance of color and esthetics for compression stockings?
Designer Rokitta: The performance of a compression stocking obviously relates to its medical function and successful therapy, but esthetics also contribute by appealing to the emotions and boosting motivation. The leg looks healthier, more attractive and more fashionable with the compression stocking. Color plays a major part in this. 

Images: Andreas Köhring, Bauerfeind