Paint Palettes
Turn any paint color into a design system.
Annie Sloan
Annie Sloan invented Chalk Paint in 1990 and in doing so created an entirely new category of decorative paint — one that requires no priming, no sanding, and adheres to virtually any surface. Her intentionally small, curated palette of colours is organised around a colour theory triangle system that teaches makers how to mix, layer, and combine shades rather than simply pick one off a chart. This philosophy — that colour is about relationships, not isolated swatches — has fuelled the world's largest DIY and upcycling community, with stockists in over 60 countries. Every shade is rooted in art history, from the pigments of Renaissance frescoes to the painted shutters of Provence, making the range as much an education in colour as it is a practical toolkit for transforming furniture, walls, and interiors.
Behr
Behr commands the largest share of the American paint market through its exclusive partnership with Home Depot, putting professional-grade colour into every suburban neighbourhood in the country. What sets Behr apart for designers is their commitment to digital workflows: official Adobe .ase palette files and SketchUp colour libraries are available as free downloads, bridging the gap between physical paint and screen-based design tools. The Designer Collection elevates their offering beyond mass-market basics, curating trend-aware palettes that rival boutique brands. With thousands of colours organised into intuitive families and backed by robust digital tooling, Behr proves that massive market reach and design credibility are not mutually exclusive.
Benjamin Moore
The specification standard for American architecture and interior design. Benjamin Moore’s palette of over 3,500 colours is the default reference for US designers, architects, and contractors — when a spec sheet calls out a paint colour, it almost always carries a Benjamin Moore code. Their colour system spans from the Historical Collection’s heritage tones to the contemporary Color Preview and Affinity ranges, each formulated with proprietary Gennex colorant technology that produces consistent, repeatable results across sheens and substrates. That ubiquity makes their hex equivalents the most converted paint values on the internet: every digital designer working from a physical swatch eventually needs the screen translation.
Dulux
The dominant paint brand across the UK and Australia, Dulux has shaped how millions think about colour in the home. Their Heritage range — a tightly curated collection of complex, historically-informed shades — competes directly with Farrow & Ball at a fraction of the price, making it the designer's pragmatic choice for projects where budget matters but palette integrity cannot slip. The annual Dulux Colour of the Year announcement moves the entire decorating market, influencing everything from furniture upholstery to graphic design trends. Across their Easycare, Trade, and Heritage lines, Dulux offers an unusually broad spectrum from utilitarian to aspirational, which is why their colour codes appear as frequently in architectural specifications as they do on weekend shopping lists.
Farrow & Ball
The palette that defined modern interior design. Farrow & Ball's 132 colours are the reference point for architects, interior designers, and design-literate homeowners worldwide. Where most paint brands chase breadth — thousands of forgettable shades — Farrow & Ball curates. Every colour is considered in relation to the others: the warm neutrals sit together, the heritage greens complement the estate blues, and even the whites have undertones that respond to natural light. That restraint is why their palette reads as a design system, not a colour chart. It's also why their hex codes are the most searched paint values on the internet — designers need them as starting points for digital palettes, brand identities, and UI colour tokens.
Fired Earth
For over forty years Fired Earth has been a quiet institution in British interiors, holding a curated range of around 120 colours that rivals Farrow & Ball for restraint and editorial confidence. Every shade carries a heritage name drawn from landscape, material, or literary reference, giving the palette the character of a country house library catalogue. The collection is deliberately compact: each colour earns its place alongside hand-glazed tiles, reclaimed stone, and solid timber that Fired Earth is equally known for. The result is a palette purpose-built for period properties, rectory kitchens, and anyone who values considered restraint over overwhelming choice.
Little Greene
Britain's oldest independent paint manufacturer and the designer's alternative to Farrow & Ball. Little Greene has been making paint in their own factory since 1773 — a quarter-millennium of colour expertise that no heritage rebrand can replicate. Their partnership with the National Trust gives them unmatched credibility for period properties: the archive colours are sourced from real Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian interiors, not mood boards. But the palette isn't trapped in history — contemporary additions sit alongside heritage tones with the same density of pigment and complexity of undertone. For architects working on listed buildings, Little Greene is the specification default. For designers who want Farrow & Ball depth without the Farrow & Ball price tag, it's the open secret.
Paint & Paper Library
Created by interior designer David Oliver, Paint & Paper Library treats colour as architecture. Their RIBA-certified Architectural Colours system uses a tonal numbering scale (I–V, light to dark) that functions as a design token approach to colour — each family shares a single pigment base at five calibrated strengths, letting architects specify a complete scheme by number alone. The 85 Original Colours add narrative depth: historical, global, and unapologetically opinionated. Together they form a 180-shade palette engineered for professionals who think in tonal relationships, not isolated swatches.
Portola Paints
The Instagram-era design darling that redefined what paint could feel like. Portola Paints emerged from Los Angeles in the late 1990s and quickly became the finish of choice for high-end California residential design, earning heavy rotation in Architectural Digest spreads and designer portfolios from Jake Arnold to Amber Lewis. Their hand-blended lime wash — mixed in small batches at their North Hollywood studio — delivers the chalky, luminous, old-world patina that has become synonymous with modern California interiors. Every colour in the New Standard palette is a complex blend of pigments with unparalleled depth, formulated as zero-VOC and crafted to shift subtly with natural light, making each wall a living surface rather than a flat plane of colour.
Ressource
The French equivalent of Farrow & Ball, rooted in Provençal ochre-mining heritage since 1946. Ressource's palette is built on the principle that colour should feel lived-in — warm, complex, and layered with the patina of southern French light. Their designer collaborations with Sarah Lavoine, Serge Bensimon, and Philippe Model have produced some of the most coveted shades in European interior design, blending contemporary Parisian taste with centuries of pigment tradition. Now expanding into the US market through a growing network of high-end showrooms, Ressource represents untapped territory for designers seeking colours that feel irreducibly French — neither heritage pastiche nor trend-chasing, but something confidently in between.
Sherwin-Williams
The world's largest paint company and the default specification for US commercial architecture. Sherwin-Williams is one of few brands to offer official downloadable .ase palettes for Adobe and .skp for SketchUp, proving they understand the digital design workflow. Their 1,700-colour palette spans from the designer-favourite Emerald and Cashmere lines to the architectural SuperPaint range, making them ubiquitous in both residential and commercial specification.
Zoffany
Part of Sanderson Design Group alongside Morris & Co. and Harlequin, Zoffany approaches colour from a fabric-and-wallpaper-first perspective that few paint-only brands can match. Their 156 richly pigmented shades are formulated to sit alongside the house's textile and wallcovering collections, making cross-material colour coordination effortless. Favoured by interior designers working on high-end residential and hospitality projects, the palette balances deep heritage tones with quietly contemporary neutrals. The result is a collection where every colour feels considered in the context of a complete decorating scheme, not just a wall.
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