We’d like you to meet Wallpaper* blue, the new colour developed by creative director Sarah Douglas during a fruitful year-long collaboration with one of the UK’s oldest paper companies, James Cropper.
The new hue – an unusual dark petrol blue – first made its appearance in a slightly different form when Douglas specified a palette of 12 new colours as part of Wallpaper’s 2013 redesign. ‘I wanted to develop it further,’ she explains, ‘and the opportunity to work with James Cropper came at just the right time.’
The family-owned company, founded in 1845 and based in the Lake District village of Burneside, is one of the world’s leading producers of coloured and specialist papers, and works with many of the biggest brands in fashion and design – but this is the first time it has developed a bespoke paper for a magazine. ‘It’s been a really fruitful collaboration,’ Douglas says, ‘and I’ve loved meeting people who are so passionate about what they do.’
The making of Wallpaper* Blue: watch the film
Working closely with current chairman Mark Cropper and his colour specialists, Douglas explored the possibilities of the existing blue, and ended up taking it in a subtly new direction. As she says, ‘The new Wallpaper* paper colour may look at first glance like a dark, almost navy blue, but it also contains a surprising amount of yellow, which gives it added richness and warmth. It feels modern and has a certain austerity, but it’s also a strong colour that to me feels very Wallpaper* and really reflects the strength of the brand.’
The new paper colour is already being used for all Wallpaper* stationery, but there are also plans afoot to launch a range of Wallpaper* notebooks in the same hue: watch this space.
This is the first time the family-owned company has developed a bespoke paper for a magazine.
The bespoke tone – an unusual dark petrol blue – made its first appearance in a slightly different form during the 2013 redesign of Wallpaper*.
The new paper colour is already being used for all Wallpaper* stationery.
There are plans afoot for a range of Wallpaper* notebooks in the same hue.
-
The new Frederic Church Center at Olana complements its leafy Upstate New York siteTour the Frederic Church Center for Architecture and Landscape, now open at Olana, a historic site in Upstate New York, courtesy of architecture studio ARO
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper editors have been doing this weekA week of jetsetting has seen the editors in Tokyo, Milan, Vienna, Miami, New York and drinking Guinness with Jonathan Anderson in London
-
The Living Places experiment: how can architecture foster future wellbeing?Research initiative Living Places Copenhagen tests ideas around internal comfort and sustainable architecture standards to push the envelope on how contemporary homes and cities can be designed with wellness at their heart
