Name: Jonathan Jakischa
Job Title: Senior Technician and Dramatone Global Quality Assurance Specialist Color Technology Group
Location: Strongsville, OH
Country: USA
Who is Jonathan Jakischa
I started here as a temp in 2000 and became a full-time employee in 2001. I left for a while and came back in 2002 and have been working in quality control for the Dramatone color line ever since. I’m married and we have a 16-month-old daughter named Rose. When we get any free time, my wife and I like to go to the movies. We also like to go on hikes with our daughter.
What does color mean to you at work?
I consider myself the first step in bringing color into other people’s world, and I like what I do very much. My job is to test the samples that come into my lab to see if the color meets the Dramatone specifications. We have computers to analyze the samples, but when I started the guy who taught me this job had a keen eye for knowing whether the color was right or not. Just by looking, he could say whether it was half a unit too red or half a unit too green. I’d like to think that by now I’ve become pretty good at judging samples visually myself, though I couldn’t give you a number on how much it’s off like he did.
My lab is very colorful and that’s appropriate since we deal with colors regularly. Color is all that we do. I even chose a colorful lab coat. I think I’m the only one who wears a dark blue lab coat. Everyone else wears white. When it comes time to replace it, I’m not sure the dark blue coat will be available anymore.
…and out of work?
I like deep, bright colors everywhere I go. We painted our house in deep colors. The living room is deep forest green. The bedroom is a deep, slightly bluish red. The hall is bright yellow with a slight tinge of red. We have a lot of woodwork in our house and the deep colors complement it well. Other members of my family, friends and people I work with like lighter colors, but when they see our house they like it. My daughter has a lot of colors in her room and lots of different colored stuffed animals. One of her favorite toys is a pink bunny rabbit. But she hasn’t shown a preference for a particular color yet.
What is your all-time favorite color and why?
Blue gray is my favorite color. It’s calm, comfortable, reassuring. It’s the color of my daughter’s eyes as well as mine. It doesn’t matter what kind of day I’ve had, when I look into those eyes and see them looking back at me everything else just fades away. I know she’s happy to see me and I’m happy to see her.
If you could choose one color that most closely matches your personality, what would it be and why?
I think deep green would best reflect my personality. It’s bright and vibrant but not overpowering. It’s a calm, comfortable color, and when I see it somewhere it makes me think that it’s a nice place to be.