How it started…
Five years ago, I was holding a certificate from the Intellectual Property Office confirming the UK Design Registration for The Colour Palette Company. Seeing the design formally recognised was incredible.
What began as a tweet and a simple graphic celebrating Birmingham had become something protected, tangible and real. I remember the pride of that moment clearly and that registration marked a shift in mindset.
I wasn’t just sharing a design through my social media anymore. I was building a brand rooted in place, memory and identity, one colour at a time.
How it’s going…
Five years on, I’ve just relaunched the website with more than 1,000 gift and wall art items available. What started with a single Birmingham palette now stretches across towns, cities, counties and coastlines. Mugs, prints, water bottles, lunch boxes, framed artworks – colour palettes that began on a screen now live in kitchens, studios, offices and shop windows.
The design has appeared super-sized on rail station walls. It’s stocked in museum and gallery gift shops across the country.
One sits in one of the world’s largest museum shops, in New York State, which still stops me in my tracks.
I think about that original tweet often. I think about packing orders on my sons’ pool table. I think about sealing postage tubes with endless rolls of tape late at night, printing labels, and starting again the next day.
The growth has been steady, and driven by people connecting with their place through colour. Every new palette carries its own story. Every order represents someone choosing to celebrate where they’re from or somewhere they love.
I’m proud of how far it’s come. I’m excited by how much further it can go. I want to see Colour Palette designs in kitchens and offices across the globe. I want to keep expanding the collection, collaborating, scaling up and thinking bigger.
Watch this colourful space.