The Coventry Colour Palette is now available at two of the city’s best-known museums: the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum and Coventry Transport Museum.
There are some days running The Colour Palette Company that are particularly enjoyable. Heading to Coventry armed with mugs and coasters, photographing them alongside some magnificent classic cars and having a coffee beneath Dippy the dinosaur definitely qualifies.
The reason for the visit was an exciting one. The Coventry Colour Palette is now stocked at both the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum and Coventry Transport Museum, giving visitors another way to take a little piece of the city home with them.
And Coventry is a city that gives you plenty of colour to play with.
Like every design in The Colour Palette Company collection, The Coventry Colour Palette takes six colours and connects each one to a story, place or piece of local identity.
There’s history, architecture, football, music and motoring in this one:
Spon Street Brown celebrates the beautiful buildings of one of Coventry’s most distinctive historic streets.
Cathedral Glow takes its inspiration from the spectacular baptistery window at Coventry Cathedral, created from 198 brightly coloured glass panels.
Godiva White gives a nod to Coventry’s enduring Lady Godiva legend.
Sky Blue needs little explanation to anyone who knows their Coventry football.
Big Cat Green celebrates Coventry’s connection with one of the world’s most coveted car companies.
And finally, Two Tone Black celebrates the legendary record label and a musical movement forever associated with Coventry.
Together they make a six-colour snapshot of Coventry, from medieval streets to motor cars.
EXPLORE THE COVENTRY COLOUR PALETTE
It was fantastic to see a dedicated display of Coventry Colour Palette gifts at the Herbert, with the six colours appearing across mugs, coasters, prints, tote bags and more.
And it would have been rude not to take a Coventry Colour Palette mug for a photograph with Dippy.
The Herbert is one of those museums that gets right to the heart of its city, making it a particularly appropriate home for a design inspired by Coventry’s own stories and landmarks.
For visitors looking for an unusual Coventry souvenir or Coventry gift, the palette is designed to be something recognisably local without simply putting the name of the city on another souvenir.
Each colour has a story attached to it. That’s the bit I love.
The palette has also arrived at Coventry Transport Museum, where I couldn’t resist taking a few of the products around the collection for some photographs.
Putting Big Cat Green alongside Coventry’s motoring heritage felt particularly appropriate.
There was also the slightly surreal experience of photographing a Coventry Colour Palette mug in front of a beautiful classic car and discovering that the colours looked completely at home.
The museum shop now has its own Coventry Colour Palette display, giving visitors looking for Coventry Transport Museum gifts, Coventry car gifts and Coventry souvenirs another locally inspired option.
SHOP COVENTRY COLOUR PALETTE GIFTS
Seeing the Coventry collection in two more museum shops is particularly exciting because they join a growing roster of museum and cultural partners for The Colour Palette Company across the country.
The original idea behind these designs was always about telling the story of a place through colour. Museums do exactly that in a much bigger way: preserving the objects, art, stories and peculiarities that make our towns and cities different.
Over the past few years, Colour Palettes have found their way into museum and gallery shops around the UK, including partnerships and commissions in cities such as Liverpool, Sheffield, Birmingham, Exeter, Carlisle and York.
Some palettes have been created especially with museums, while others have become part of their ranges of locally designed gifts and souvenirs.
For a little business that started with me looking at the colours of Birmingham buses during lockdown, seeing these designs sitting in museum shops around the country remains rather wonderful.
Whether Coventry is home, somewhere you studied, somewhere you support from the terraces or simply a city that means something to you, the Coventry Colour Palette brings six very different pieces of its story together in one design.
It’s available across a growing range of Coventry gifts, including mugs, coasters, art prints and other colourful bits and pieces.
And now you can find it while visiting two of Coventry’s major museums too.
SHOP THE COVENTRY COLOUR PALETTE
Next time you’re at the Herbert, say hello to Dippy for me.
He’s still not getting the coffees in.
