Coalesse® Develops a Master Color Palette Inspired by California

SW_1 and Lagunitas Knit Program Launches, Reflecting This Guiding Aesthetic Framework

Coalesse introduces a specialized aesthetic point of view in the form of a Coalesse color palette, which guides its choices in designing spaces, products and experiences. After an extensive search into how Coalesse has used color in the past, Director of Global Design John Hamilton and his team found a tendency toward a warm, neutral palette in the spaces.

Hamilton and team took the colors they were already using and increased their saturation for more vitality. A new and fresh accent palette was added to the neutral classics, drawing from more vivid shades of the same spectrum. To find these colors, Hamilton and his Global Design Group looked to nature, for the innate pleasure that natural elements bring to our senses. In particular, the Coalesse color palette is most inspired by California, where the Coalesse design studio was founded and operated for many years. The team drew on the natural environments most directly around them—the presence of both landscape and seascape, and the famed, beautiful, softly colorful light in California—to inform how a unique Coalesse palette would look and feel.

“We wanted the palette to connect with who we are as a brand and how the environment we live in and interact with helps us see things differently,” says Hamilton. “It’s interesting as you move through the world and you experience light in different areas, that the color, the feel of the light is different. The light in a California beach area is different than in the northern territories. But in these places it’s always rich and actually full of color, never flat.”

The Coalesse color palette is based in a natural, calm, inviting state of color. It has been especially designed to identify with Coalesse products, but also, to suggest a richer residential and environmental spirit beyond the types of colors traditionally used in the office environment.

Now, Coalesse introduces a knit program – directly derived from the Coalesse color palette – for the popular SW_1 Seating Collection and the Lagunitas Lounge System, featuring 17 expanded colorways.

SW_1
Lagunitas

“You know how hard-working and effective our products are. They look like residential furniture, but they have power built in to them. They adapt to different applications,” adds Hamilton. “When you use a new palette on a piece like SW_1 or Lagunitas, they’re going to feel even more residential, and add to this sensibility of a place where you would want to work.”

The Coalesse color palette inspired these knit fabrics in both cool and warm neutrals, foundational earth and blue tones, and richer accents from color families including blush pinks and warm goldenrod yellows.

Color is a powerful tool to enable personal expression and bring a natural warmth and soul to the workplace — making users feel more engaged. A new palette offers designers expanded color choice to create more bespoke applications. When it’s understood that this set of colors works together to support other colors and natural materials in a space, it becomes easier to begin to personalize within a specific and refined design language.

For more information on Coalesse and its products, visit www.coalesse.com.

Bringing New Life to Work

About Coalesse

Led by intuition, backed by research, and driven by design – Coalesse creates thoughtful furnishings for the modern workplace. We help our customers to make great spaces that inspire great work by empowering social connection, creative collaboration, and focus and rejuvenation. For workplaces around the world, we design products that blend beauty and utility, comfort and vitality, and insights with inspiration to bring new life to work. As part of the Steelcase Inc. family of brands, we are globally accessible through a network of over 800 dealers.