Coalesse has developed a color palette that guides our choices in designing spaces, products and experiences. The Coalesse color palette is our own internal aesthetic framework. We use our palette to bring forth new offerings and to communicate the spirit of our brand in the spaces we make.
What’s in a palette?
The word “palette” is a widely used design term, but it’s not always specifically understood in the world of customization. In the original sense of the word, a palette was a physical object—a flat surface on which a painter would arrange and mix paints. But the set of colors that was chosen and made or mixed by each artist also became known as a palette.
A palette is a set of colors or materials that is selected to work together in both harmonious and complementary ways. A palette can also mean the personality or visual style that those selections communicate.
Coalesse Color Palette
The Coalesse color palette is based in a natural, calm, inviting state of color that we apply to the spaces we make and certain products we develop. This palette has been especially designed to sympathize with Coalesse products, but also, to suggest a richer residential and environmental spirit beyond the types of colors traditionally used in the office environment.
Below, Coalesse Global Director of Design John Hamilton discusses the palette and what inspired his team in the creation process.
How would you describe the Coalesse point of view on color?
It’s a calm palette of color. Our point of view is that color shouldn’t be the most important part of any setting. Colors that Coalesse usually uses – and what we’re trying to put forward – are colors that work with a lot of other colors and natural materials.
How did your surroundings influence your color choices?
Our color palette and point of view is inspired by where we live and where our design studio resided for a long time, in California. We looked to the natural environment around us. We looked to the colors and the way the light is rendered in California to try and inform us about how we wanted the palette to look and feel.
We wanted the palette to connect with how the environment we live in and interact with helps us see things differently. It’s interesting as you move through the world and you experience light in different areas that the color, the feel of the light is different. The light in a California beach area is different than in the northern territories.
In the palette, you’ll see the cactuses and succulents, ocean, sky, and wood and those things that occur in nature. They’re nice to be around and will make you feel welcome, warm and excited to be a part of an environment.
What process did your team go through to formally define that point of view?
It was a long, extensive search into how we’ve used color in the past. We looked at what we’ve done in showrooms and how we’ve used a warm, neutral palette to create spaces. We started to understand that when we used a lot of color, but it was very muted. It was on a valuation level that was very low. It was not saturated in the way you think of strong, vibrant colors.
We wanted to take the colors we were already using and inject more white and more black into them and increase their saturation a little bit. We still have the neutral classic palette, but incorporated a new and fresh accent palette. That accent palette is still based on a spectrum of colors. The colors that we chose still have different saturations of white and black in them so get these muted versions of the color and deep rich versions of those colors.
I’ve heard people describe our palette as jewel-toned, minerally, or light and beach-like. That’s a lot of what inspired us, and it’s coming through in the colors that we’ve chosen.
See more of the Coalesse color palette.
