Stewarts Office Plants

We supply many businesses across the South, from Sussex and Surrey, through Hampshire and Dorset to Wiltshire and Somerset. For more information about the services we offer visit our home page, or contact us here. In this blog you'll find news, interesting snippets, stories and pictures of our staff's adventures out on the road.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

What colour is 'Royal Blue'?

We were recently invited by a hotel chain to put plants in their soon-to-be-completed Southampton branch. The on-site contact was very amenable about what we suggested, but the containers must be 'Royal Blue', as this was the corporate colour.

As anyone who's bought plant pots from me will know I'm a paint code geek, but I really struggled to decide what constituted Royal Blue. A search of Wikipedia - if anything - muddied the waters, as it turns out 'old' Royal Blue was a very dark blue, whereas it is now considered to be a mid to light blue.

My paint supplier pointed out that on the old BS381C (middle of page), colour 106 is called Royal Blue, but that's almost black! Help! Eventually I narrowed the choice down to the more modern RAL (top of page) colours, and suggested RAL 5010. The client agreed (rather too readily) and I worried about it until yesterday when we put the pots in.

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending, as the client was delighted, and look at the colour match with the chair next to it: spot on!

(Incidentally, this display features one of our specialities for prominent places like receptions: three Anthuriums in different colours. You pay about twice as much per month as for an ordinary plant, but we change the plants when they stop flowering. It still works out a fraction of the price of fresh flowers.

So did I get it right? Is this Royal Blue in your opinion? Feel free to look at the colour chart and email me with your own nomination - release your inner 'paint code geek'!