Introducing our new Maps of Colour
Find your pathway from one colour to another
A simple new tool to help you tell your story of home
Our Maps of Colour is a tool to help you build your own colour palette. We have re-designed it to be more interactive, placing you at the centre of it all.
Created by our founder Cassandra Ellis, to help people create palettes that work for them and their homes. Find everything you need to plan, prepare and choose the paint colours for your home and place.
Our Maps of Colour are here to guide you through the process.
Start with Your Memories, Marks and Fragments
For Cassandra, the pale blue dress her mother made her when she was little, the plum orchards of her childhood home and the colours of late summer on Kiwi beaches are happy markers, so these colours will always be found in her home. Find what it is for you that is deep-rooted and a real source of joy. We all have memories, marks and fragments that say: “this is me, this is home”.
Spend time thinking about a colour or colours that have always been with you. Build a visual story through photographs and tear sheets, postcards and books, words and pictures. Gather elements, ideas and places that feel unthinkingly you. Somewhere in that gathering of ‘things’ will be you, your home and the colours you and it want to live with. This is where you will find the starting point to build your Map of Colour. There will be colours and ideas that run through everything you have gathered. Inside this assemblage you will find the starting point to build your colour palette.
Decorating is 50% Human, 50% House
Crafting a colour palette is 50% human and 50% house - and always the former first. You will know the colours that make you feel right – use that as a starting point – and then your home will guide the rest. Its location, size, light and landscape will help you finalise the perfect hue. For her living room, Cassandra chose I Went Outside, as it picks up the greenery of the park opposite and the afternoon west-facing light. There will be the right shade of pale blue for you and your home – if pale blue is what you need. If you want to live in a quietly coloured home, then there will be families of colours that work together. There is of course a white for everyone and every house.
Assemble Your Palette
Once you have gathered your references and understood your homes needs, then you can begin to build your palette. This is where our Maps of Colour can help you.
Organised by page in keeping with our hand painted Paint Chart, you will find colour directions for each and every colour in our main collection.
Choose a lead colour, then a theme – Quiet or Nuanced. Select as few or as many shades that we have curated across each theme. You can assemble any number of hues, and can also mix and match across the two themes.
Select a tonal neutral or two, or find the perfect white or mid-tone to work together beautifully. Our neutral families have the added advantage of working with each colour within the whole group of mapped shades.
You can create a palette for an individual room or for your whole home – like a beautiful map of colour.
Watch It Come Together Beautifully
Simply enjoy the process. If you need further guidance, visit our colour advice page.
Explore our Maps of Colour.
