‘Working with color requires being both an engineer and a visual thinker’

Color influences consumer preferences much more than most people realize: roughly 85% Most purchasing decisions are influenced by the color of the product. Why do we retreat into one shadow and remain indifferent to another? How can completely different materials (plastic, metal, fabric, glass) still speak the same visual language?

Dr. Sajeesh Kumar Kulappurath has spent the last fifteen years searching for answers to these very questions. With a background spanning the textile and consumer electronics industries, he is now one of only a handful of experts who have fully written the standards by which Apple and the wider industry evaluate color, gloss and surface texture. According to him, color is no longer just a technical parameter. It has become a language of perception that connects art, engineering and human emotions.

You started your career with companies like D’Décor and Trident, major players in India’s textile industry where you were directly responsible for new product development. How did those years lead you from textile engineering to consumer technology?

Seven years spent in dye shops and color laboratories taught me something invaluable: the same dye formula can produce dramatically different results depending on fiber type, pretreatment and process conditions. I’ve discovered that color is never just a design choice. It was a complex variable governed by chemistry, physics, physiology and even psychology. A single shade of color can look completely different on cotton and polyester and change the entire emotional impact of a fabric. This observation pushed me to dig deeper, properly study human perception patterns, and eventually pursue a PhD in color science. My research has focused on light-matter interactions, metamerism (the phenomenon where two colors match under one light source but separate under another), and the factors that make color consistency in mass production so difficult but critical. Problems that once seemed random and annoying in the factory environment suddenly had definitive scientific explanations. When I moved into consumer electronics, the same principles applied, only the risks were higher. Here too, color functions as a language of perception, bridging engineering precision with artistic intent and emotional resonance.

How did graduating top of your class with a gold medal from IIT Delhi and then working in an environment with real resource constraints impact your subsequent international career?

While the education I received in India provided me with an unusually strong theoretical foundation, it constantly challenged me to think practically. Almost nothing was taken for granted; Each solution had to be robust and cost-effective at the same time. When I later moved into global companies, this early discipline translated directly into the ability to bridge very different engineering cultures, separate what really matters from what only looks impressive on paper, and deliver results even when budgets or timelines are tight. In short, the limitations of the early years became a competitive advantage.

After years of researching light-matter interactions in consumer electronics and human color perception, what drives your passion for this work today?

For the end user, color matching is experienced as effortless consistency; An almost invisible thread connecting the display, body, buttons, cables and packaging. But achieving this perfection is extraordinarily difficult. A deviation of as little as 0.2 units in brightness, chroma or hue may be mathematically negligible on the spec sheet, but the moment the two parts are placed side by side the human eye immediately registers this mismatch as a defect. This tension between measurable indulgence and perceived perfection is what still fascinates me every day.

Your PhD research in polymers and color science has addressed some of the industry’s most persistent problems. How have these findings changed the way you approach real-world color challenges in large-scale production?

The PhD gave me predictive models and precise quantitative tools that were not available in most factories at the time. Suddenly, before a single die was cut, we could predict how color would change between plastic, painted metal, and anodized aluminum in different lighting conditions. These models now allow us to match components from suppliers on three different continents, identify coatings that remain stable over years of use, and reduce visible deviations to levels previously thought impossible.

You have incorporated systems of quantitative color control, spectral analysis, precision matching and inter-material harmonization into global supply chains so that the final product appears perfectly consistent to the human eye. How do you maintain color quality with literally no compromises, especially in the true premium segment?

For most buyers, the feeling of superior quality is decided in the first three to four seconds, and this is almost entirely decided by visual and tactile fit. Color, gloss and surface texture together create an immediate impression of value. Subjective evaluation alone is not sufficient: human observers are affected by lighting conditions, fatigue, color memory, and individual physiology. That’s why we rely on objective instrumentation. High-end spectrophotometers and protractors measure absolute color values, capture risks of metamerism and verify that the same visual impression is reproduced on plastics, metals, glass and coatings no matter where in the world each piece is made.

In other words, you effectively orchestrate visual harmony between materials that inherently behave very differently under light. What does this job mean to you personally and professionally?

At the most practical level, my work sits at the intersection of meticulous engineering and true creative expression, while also serving sustainability goals through less waste and rework. When the color is correct, the product is instantly perceived as original, refined and complete. The user rarely realizes the thousands of measurements behind this impression, but a deviation of less than one unit can destroy the entire illusion. Being able to control the invisible boundary between technical precision and emotional response—between physics and human perception—is what makes this profession uniquely rewarding for me.