Colour is relative
Client
Aditya Birla Group
Date
2024
Location
Mumbai, India
Services Provided
Sector
Aditya Birla Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate, headquartered in Mumbai – with over 20 subsidiaries and business interests ranging from fashion and textiles, to entertainment, renewables and real estate.
We were approached by Grasim Industries, a subsidiary, to assist in developing a new consumer paint brand. They entrusted us with the critical task of designing their most important touchpoint: the swatch book. Instead of starting with the Brand Identity, they prioritised the development of a flexible, modular swatch book system. At this early stage, they didn't even have a name for the brand.
Our main goal was to make the swatch book a highly efficient and user-friendly tool for specification. Building on this starting point, we developed visual concepts that expanded the swatch book's form into broader brand expressions. These initial concepts played a role in the development of the final Visual Identity, later completed by another firm.
Swatch book
The swatch book had to accommodate over 2000 unique colours in a variety of ranges. The system had to allow for a range of swatch profiles for certain colour groups that required an elevated presence.
We also developed a colour isolator tool to allow the user to single out individual colours against white, reducing the impact of neighbouring tones.
Pack concepts
The circular motif that arose from the isolator tool became a device that repeats through our pack and campaign concepts.
These concepts were created in advance of even a brand name in order to inform a visual strategy that had its roots firmly within the practicality of the swatch book.
Campaign concepts
The 'colour is relative' line grew from observations made about the effect one colour has on another and the issues that creates when making selections.
In turn, this gave rise to some interesting ideas for how the sample paint colours could have peel off stickers allowing tones to be seen within and around each other.
