One consolation for the sorry state of the world has been a widespread revival of the art, application and appreciation of colour. We’ve tracked architects, artists and designers who are making a polychromatic splash in ways that would have been considered outrageously tasteless just a decade ago.
The Year of the Tiger Posters, by Cheng Peng
Colour Clash is a new book from Counter-Print, a boutique design publisher that respects and relishes the value, tactility and endurance of print. The book gathers together a number of graphic projects that fit this bold brief, ‘combinations that surprised, engaged, challenged and grabbed our attention – the ones that shouldn’t work but just do’.
Colour Clash: palettes that distract and disrupt
Information poster by Simin Xu
Gathering work from around the world, including posters, packaging design, corporate identities and branding, Colour Clash is a vibrant insight into the catholic tastes of the contemporary design industry, all vying to stand out from the crowd with palettes that disrupt and distract, albeit in a mostly pleasing way.
Varieté packaging by Requena
We live in an attention-overloaded era, a time when quiet good taste often finds itself at the bottom of the pile, ignored by all in the relentless searching for attention. Many of the featured designs are ephemeral, but that’s partly the point; colour catches the eye, and jarring colours stand out still further, making them a perfect choice for event branding, pop-up shops or supergraphics.
Packaging for The Scientist Coffee by HDU²³ Lab
Colour Clash also taps into the anti-aesthetics of the post-beauty world, as design disciplines have fallen out of love with modernist rigour. In addition to colours, the forms and fonts used in the book play with the prosaic and invert the quotidian, making a virtue out of the collision between the ordinary and the unexpected.
'Visible Invisible' exhibition graphics by Fakepaper
Designers represented include the French studio My Name is Wendy, Hong Kong-based Atelier Avocado, Irish designer Duane Dalton and many more.
Colour Clash, Counter-Print Books, £20, Counter-Print.co.uk
-
Wallpaper* checks in at Granger Hotel: an intimate, maximalist charmer in San DiegoSet in the historic Gaslamp Quarter, Granger Hotel is an oasis of design blending history with modernity
-
A cavalcade of Kias is announced as the South Korean manufacturer bolsters its EV line-upThe 2025 Kia EV Day in Tarragona saw a new concept and new production cars as Kia moves into electric commercial vehicles and smaller family cars
-
'I'm trying to examine what it's like to be a person': Author Curtis Sittenfeld on her new book, 'Show Don't Tell'As Curtis Sittenfeld publishes her new book, 'Show Don't Tell', she tells Wallpaper* why she is drawn to her ambiguous characters
