About a Brand Colour: Tiffany Blue
It is hard to think of brand colour as powerful, or as emotive, as “Tiffany Blue”. Tiffany & Co. — the American luxury jewellery retailer headquartered in New York City — is internationally renowned for its diamond and sterling silver jewellery. But its brand colour is just as iconic.
“Tiffany Blue” has been the brand’s identifying colour since 1845, and is the colloquial name for the light robin-egg blue associated with the company created by Charles Tiffany and John Young in 1837.
The colour was chosen by Tiffany for the cover of their Blue Book, first published in 1845, which documented some of the world’s most precious and rare stones — including diamonds obtained from French and Spanish aristocracy. Since then, Tiffany & Co. have used the colour extensively on promotional materials — including their now signature blue jewellery box.
But it was not until 2001, when the brand approached Pantone to standardise their iconic shade, that the colour became a legal asset in its own right. Tiffany & Co. wanted to ensure that no matter where it was in the world, and no matter what medium the colour was reproduced in, it would be instantly recognisable.
Tiffany Blue — or Pantone 1837 — is now defined by the Pantone Colour Institute’s custom colour program. It is a private custom colour of Tiffany & Co. which bears…